Shakespeare’s searing portrait of a prince in crisis intimidated nearly all of history’s greatest opera composers. Not so for Australian composer Brett Dean, who saw in Hamlet’s splintering sanity a perfect match for his evocative music.

Now is your chance to see one of the most successful operas ever composed by an Australian. Commissioned and premiered by Glyndebourne, and performed at the Metropolitan Opera of New York and the Adelaide Festival to great acclaim, Hamlet finally gets its Sydney Opera House debut.

Dean composed an expansive sound world, with a massive orchestra and chorus, at times positioned around the theatre. The effect is dramatic and luxurious, a wall of voices pressing in on Hamlet’s troubled mind. Electronics create musical ghosts. Librettist Matthew Jocelyn carves up the text so the familiar pops up in unexpected places.