SHAKESPEARE: BRUSH UP YOUR LIBRETTO!
One of the real problems in John Adams’ new opera is that Shakespeare wrote plays but never opera librettos. Now, Will, “Hamlet,” “Macbeth” and “Othello” are all well and good as stage plays, but couldn’t you think of baritones and sopranos too? In using Shakespeare and earlier texts for almost all of his libretto, composer Adams was stuck with lines rarely ending in vowels. He thus saddles the singers with drooping fade-out lines that suppress their attractiveness and expressiveness. Just…