Salzburg Festival

What you need to know: Hamlet by Ambroise Thomas

Well prepared for the premiere with Larissa Schütz's opera quick check(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Markus Tschepp)

Whether you're on the trolleybus on the way to the performance, having a cigarette in front of the Salzburg Festival Theatre or queuing in the toilet - with the opera quick check you'll be perfectly prepared for the premiere in just two minutes. Part six of the series: Hamlet by Ambroise Thomas.

What's it all about? Hamlet with a happy ending. The French composer Ambroise Thomas - one of the most famous opera composers of his time, but now forgotten - set Shakespeare's most famous play to music, taking a few liberties with the plot. The play will be performed in concert at the Salzburg Festival.

Plot: Prince Hamlet wants to avenge the death of his father, the king, after his father's ghost appears to him and reveals that he was murdered by Hamlet's uncle Claudius. After the assassination, Claudius has seized the crown and married Hamlet's mother, Queen Gertrude. The ghost urges the prince to take revenge, but to spare his mother. Hamlet then goes mad and stages a play reenacting the murder of his father, in which Claudius actually betrays himself. Hamlet also learns that his lover Ophelia's father was also involved in the king's murder, which is why he breaks up with her. Ophelia in turn goes mad and drowns herself. Ophelia's brother and Claudius now both have a reason to kill Hamlet and devise a plan together. In the final duel, Hamlet stabs Claudius to death. Unlike in Shakespeare, the ghost of his father commands Hamlet to live on.

Boast for the interval: the opera contains one of the longest trombone solos in opera history. Also: for the first time ever in an opera, a saxophone is used in Hamlet.