Shakespeare’s Tragedies on the Operatic Stage

Abstract

Shakespeare has inspired almost four hundred operas, among which many are based on the tragedies. Best known are those works, composed from the beginning of the nineteenth century on, by Rossini ( Otello), Gounod ( Roméo et Juliette), Thomas ( Hamlet), and Verdi ( Macbeth, Otello), which together placed Shakespearean tragedy squarely on the operatic stage. But the history of operatic (as well as other musical-dramatic) adaptations of Shakespeare stretches from the seventeenth century to the present day, tracing a complex history of musical and theatrical responses to the tragedies, a history that enriches and complicates our sense of what it means to create music-drama.