HAMLETS was first produced in Latvia in 1936 to rave reviews, then co-opted by the Nazis in the early 1940s, and subsequently shuttered by the communists during the fifty-plus years of occupation. On September 17 at 7 pm, this major mainstage work by the Canadian/Latvian composer Jānis Kalniņš was screened for the first time in Canada at the Latvian Canadian Cultural Centre. The music was avantgarde at the time, with hints of jazz and Prokofiev; it deserves to be heard beyond the borders of Latvia. In January 2022, the LNOB staged a contemporary take on the same music.
Gunta Dreifelde