Ambroise Thomas' "Hamlet" was last performed at the Metropolitan Opera in 1897, and it's easy to see why more than a century passed before its revival.
Even with two outstanding singing actors in the lead roles, the work exudes at best a fragile charm, a refinement typical of French grand opera that is worlds apart from the visceral excitement Verdi summoned for his adaptations of Shakespearean tragedy, "Otello" and "Macbeth."
