V.ii. Duel and Deaths - French Rock Opera

Three songs close Johnny Hallyday's rock opera: Le duel (The Duel), La mort d'Hamlet (The Death of Hamlet) and Le rideau tombe (The Curtain Falls). We will take each one in turn, with the French lyrics followed by my literal and unpoetic translations.

Le Duel
Elle peut venir quand il faut pas
Comme un cheveu sur la soupe
Comme un as sous la coupe
Au moment de dire «bonjour»
Au beau milieu de l’amour
C’est tellement con la mort !
Je vous souhaite le bonjour, Monsieur
Et si c’est le dernier
Je vous souhaite la belle mort, Monsieur

Elle peut venir de n’importe où
Elle peut vous tomber d’en haut
Comme l’éclair ou le couteau
Ou bien venir de trop bas
Comme le serpent, le Judas
C’est tellement con la mort !
Je vous souhaite le bonjour, Monsieur
Et si c’est le dernier
Je vous souhaite la belle mort, Monsieur

Elle peut venir n’importe quand
Au printemps comme en hiver
Qu’on sen moque ou qu’on l’espère
Qu’on soit deux ou seul pleurant
Mais jamais au bon moment
C’est tellement beau la vie !

The Duel
It can come when it shouldn't
Like a hair in your soup
Like an ace up your sleeve
When it's time to say "hello"
In the middle of love
Death is so stupid!
I wish you good day, sir
And if it's the last
I wish you good death, sir

It can come from anywhere
It can fall on you from above
Like lightning or a knife
Or come from too low
Like the serpent, the Judas
Death is so stupid!
I wish you good day, sir
And if it's the last
I wish you good death, sir

It can come at any time
In the spring or the winter
Whether we mock it or hope for it
Whether we're two or crying alone
But never at the right moment
Life is so beautiful!
Life is so beautiful!
Life is so beautiful!

Representing the duel of swords between Hamlet and Laertes (the knife) AND the duel of wits between Hamlet and Claudius (the serpent) both, the song also smacks of the "readiness is all speech". Death is unpredictable, but inevitable. The opera is more overtly romantic than any other adaptation of the play, and The Duel makes sure to reference love interrupted, and in French, plays on the similar sound of "l'amour" (love) and "la mort" (death), so that in Hallyday's accent, one might hear/sing those words interchangeably. In other words, "love is stupid" as much as death is, because they are intertwined anyway. Sex as death is a common literary trope, and Ophelia has died from love denied. She looms large in the opera, and in these final moments. The Duel starts out as fun ditty that recalls the macabre humor of the gravedigger scene (presented as bowling with skulls in the opera), until the very last lines when, it seems, Hamlet goes from thumbing his nose at death to realizing life is beautiful - in the end, he doesn't want to die - and the song heads right into The Death of Hamlet.

The Death of Hamlet has only one line, repeated over and over, and that's "Je l'aimais!" ("I loved her"). It's a lament, passionate regret, and with each heartbreaking repetition, Hamlet's voice grows more desperate, weaker, until he dies. The music's driving beat, his heart. His last thoughts in the opera are not for Fortinbras, or Horatio, or himself, but for the woman he loved badly and lost.

The Curtain Falls acts as an epilogue/summary, with a choir singing what is essentially a dirge. An apocalyptic one:

Le rideau tombe
Quelques vérités
Un peu de passion
Un fil de l'épée
Un peu de poison
Et le rideau tombe
C'est la fin du monde

Un peu de colère
Un peu de souffrance
Un peu de prière
Si peu d'importance
Et le rideau tombe
C'est la fin du monde

The Curtain Falls
A few truths
A little passion
The stab of a sword
A little poison
And the curtain falls
It's the end of the world

A little anger
A little suffering
A little prayer
So little importance
And the curtain falls
It's the end of the world

Written as a recipe for tragedy, the song downplays the epic nature of the play and gives it an existentialist mortality. All of that, and for what? The futility of life and the anticlimax of death. And yet, it's the end of the world. The world on stage. The world created in Hamlet's image. A character that contains the whole world in his scope and breadth.

And this marks the end of the project as it was originally set out, covering those specific adaptations in detail. Which doesn't mean it's over. The label "Other Hamlets" still needs to be filled with versions we haven't discussed yet.

V.i. Ophelia's Funeral - French Rock Opera

Johnny Hallyday's song for this sequence relates to Hamlet's great feats of love, outdoing a Laertes that is absent from the music itself. But it doesn't use Hamlet's lines per se. Instead, the three stanzas hark back to other moments in the play, unifying them in the theme of love, and confusing that theme with that of revenge. Before we get into it, I will post the original French lyrics, and my usual doggerel English translation.

Je l'aimais / Il est fou
Je prendrai un couteau d’acier
Et j’irai dans la forêt
Le jour, la nuit, sans m’arrêter
Sur tout les arbres je graverai
Je l’aimais, je l’aimais, je l’aimais

Je prendrai un bateau d’acier
Et j’irai sur l’océan
Je chercherai des ouragans
Et face au vent je crierai
Je l’aimais, je l’aimais, je l’aimais

Je prendrai un casque d’acier
Et j’irai chercher bataille
Et au milieu de la mitraille
En mourant je hurlerai
Je l’aimais, je l’aimais, je l’aimais

I Love Her / He is Mad
I will take a steel knife
And I will go in the forest
Day and night, without stopping
On every tree I will carve
I loved her, I loved her, I loved her

I will take a steel ship
And I will go on on the ocean
I will look for hurricanes
And facing the wind, I will shout
I loved her, I loved her, I loved her

I will take a steel helmet
And I will look for a battle
And in the middle of the shooting
While I die, I will scream
I loved her, I loved her, I loved her

Sheathing each image in steel may imply the presence of Laertes and presage the duel to come, or may function as a veiled threat to Claudius' person, also present, but it equally represents the violence done to Ophelia. The knife carving love notes on trees is the same that killed her father, and the tree a symbol of her death, its broken branch a herald of her drowning. In the second stanza, Hamlet takes us back to his sea voyage (the steel ship an anachronism, but also a metaphor for a ship of war/piracy), suicidal and unable to be heard, which was his condition before he left Denmark. The third takes us to Fortinbras' army converging on Denmark, then forward to his duel with Laertes and his death. Hallyday's adaptation changes Hamlet's motivation quite clearly. He is not motivated by revenge - the play is about a man who cannot take action on that impulse alone - but by love. He's saying Hamlet's resolve only comes when Ophelia is dead. The woman he came back for, and without whom he has nothing to live for. Everything that came before was merely family drama, investigation, and bitterness at having been jilted by Ophelia at her own family's request.

As he protests his love for her again and again (the last line repeated over and over), the chorus chimes in with "Il est fou" ("He is mad"), repeated from the song Je suis fou/I Am Mad from way back in Act I Scene 5, when the Ghost made him swear an oath. So here we have the final osmosis between revenge and love as the cause of his madness passes from one to the other.

V.i. The Gravedigger Scene - French Rock Opera

Johnny Hallyday's interpretation of the scene is just as tonal a shift musically as it is in the play. Le cimetière (The Cemetery) is a silly rock ditty that creates the gallows humor image of gravediggers bowling with skulls. And while Yorick doesn't specifically figure, Hamlet seeing the whole of humanity in an unknown skull does, irreverent rhymes evoking kings, priests, courtiers, poets, singers, politicians and more, even managing to wring some pathos out of the song near the end. Here is the text in the original French, then a fairly literal English translation (certainly not meant to compete with the original in terms of poetics).

Le cimetière
Les fossoyeurs jouent au bowling
Têtes de turcs, têtes de kings
«Vous avez fait d’assez vieux os, place aux jeunes »
Crient les morts nouveaux

Crâne roule et tourneboule
Qui es-tu revenant de terre ?
Tes yeux vides sont pleins de mystère
Avant la pelle, avant la pioche
A quoi ressemblais-tu caboche ?
Crâne qui roule et tourneboule
Quel chapeau te couvrait la tête
Une calotte ?
Une casquette ?
Que vendais-tu à la sauvette
Du Jésus ou de la courbette ?

Crâne qui roule et tourneboule
Quand tu avais, de ton vivant
Une langue derrière tes dents
Etais-tu poète ou menteur
Politiqueur ou bien chanteur
Qui es-tu revenant de terre
Tes yeux vides sont pleins de mystère
Quand ils pouvaient rire ou pleurer
As-tu aimé ?
As-tu aimé ?


The Cemetery
The gravediggers are bowling
Whipping boys, kingpins
"Enough with your old bones, leave room for the kids"
Shout the newly dead

Skull rolls and whirls
Who are you, revenant from the earth
Your empty eyes are full of mystery
Before the shovel, before the pickaxe
What did you look like, noggin?
Skull that rolls and whirls
What hat was on your head?
A cap?
A cap?
What did you sell in haste?
Some Jesus or low bows?

Skull that rolls and whirls
When you had, during your life
A tongue behind those teeth
Were you poet or liar
Politician or singer
Who are you, revenant from the earth
Your empty eyes are full of mystery
When they could laugh or cry
Did you love?
Did you love?

First, a few notes on the translation because it doesn't do justice to Hallyday's word play. "Têtes de turcs, têtes de kings" would have literally been "Heads of Turks, heads of kings", but in the first part, I translated it to what that expression means, and in the second, offered a bowling pun that matches the songwriter's intent. The word "tourneboule" ("whirls") sounds literally like "turn-ball" which is also part of the bowling image. Finally, "calotte" and "casquette" are both "caps" in English, resisting efforts to translate them differently. A translation meant to be sung and recorded would doubtless substitute one of them for a different hat, if one ending in "-ap" were found.

Though this peppy number is filled with black comedy, it does have its poignant moments. The newly dead shouting for the older generation to make way for the younger is both an image of the cemetery as clearing house for the living, and a reminder that skulls are being thrown about to make room for the youthful Ophelia. And with the final question, the Hamlet of the song takes a step away from the Hamlet of the play, giving an emotional context to the cadavers around him. Did they love? Did HE? And in Hallyday's opinion, is that the better mark of a life well lived? Hamlet-as-written cannot succeed until he takes his revenge, but Hallyday's Hamlet cannot win unless he knows love. And Ophelia's death may mean he's already lost.

IV.vii. Ophelia's Death - French Rock Opera

Funereal and pretty, Johnny Hallyday's song plays the same role as Gertrude's speech, casting events in a fantastical light, as much in the lyrics as in the music, which is filled with angelic voices and fairy twinkles. Oddly, it ends on a piano solo that seems a song apart. These sad twinkles could be Laertes' reaction, or possibly, Ophelia's last song as she sinks below the waters, the truth behind Gertrude's grandiose lyrics. There is panic in neither piece of music, as if "incapable of her own distress" was taken literally. We'll discuss the lyrics after we listen to the song. Here are the original French lyrics, then a doggerel translation for those readers who may not be up on that language.

La mort d'Ophélie
Un saule penché sur le ruisseau
Pleure dans le cristal des eaux
Ses feuilles blanches

Ophélie tressant des guirlandes
Vient présenter comme une offrande
Des fleurs, des branches

Pour caresser ses boutons d’or
Pour respirer son jeune corps
Le saule se penche

Mais sous elle un rameau se brise
Le saule en pleurs la retient prise
De part sa manche

Ophélie lui dit «qu’il est bon»
Quand le ruisseau dans un frisson
Casse la branche

Ophélie file au fil de l’eau
Qui vient gonfler son blanc manteau
Contre ses hanches

Son cri s’éteint comme une joie
La boue immonde où elle se noie
Prend sa revanche

Un saule penché sur le ruisseau
Pleure dans le cristal des eaux
Ses feuilles blanches

Ophelia's Death
A willow leaning over a stream
Weeps into the crystal of the waters
Its white leaves

Ophelia tressing garlands
Comes to present, as an offering
Flowers, branches

To caress her buttercups
To breathe in her young body
The willow leans

But under her, a bow breaks
The weeping willow keeps her from falling
On its sleeve

Ophelia tells him "he is so good"
When the stream in a shiver
Breaks the branch

Ophelia goes by on the water
That just inflated her white coat
Against her hips

Her cry is extinguished like a joy
The foul mud in which she drowns
Takes it revenge

A willow leaning over the stream
Weeps into the crystal of the waters
Its white leaves

The song is told from the willow's perspective; it stands in for Gertrude in this instance, but may weep just as much. The image is the same in French where a weeping willow is a saule pleureur, its tears its own garlands of leaves. The willow becomes the last being to have contact with Ophelia, and in these last moments, she knows love and peace. It's the stream that's villainous, that breaks the branch, that drowns the girl. Hallyday doesn't seem to believe in her suicide, and links the gravedigger's story of animated water forcibly drowning a person to redeem Ophelia. "The mud takes its revenge." While the tree is "good", the rest of Nature seems bent on killing this young woman, possibly because she has taken flowers and branches from Her. Obviously, that wilfulness is mere personification, but is Nature personified as specific people? Revenge is Hamlet's affair, and his vengeful quest is the reason her life has been smothered this day. The stream may just be the course of events, or the destructive power of Claudius, more active than muddy Hamlet, who started the ball rolling. And so the tree must be her father, her lone and ultimately useless protector. At least in her mind. One could also take the willow to be Gertrude - and my mind immediately goes to Desdemona's song in Othello, another object of men's affections doomed by them - an off-stage protector grooming Ophelia to be her son's wife, and in this story, weeping for her death and her own inability to prevent it.

Act IV, Scenes 1-3 - French Rock Opera

Strangely out of place on Disc 1 of the Johnny Hallyday's double-album, between Ophélie! Ô Folie! (Ophelia! Oh Madness!) and Je lis (I Read), is a song about the transmigration of kings through the guts of beggars. Its position seems to relate far more to Hamlet Sr. than it does Claudius, which isn't inappropriate, and resonates with the fishmonger and carrion references in the play as they relate to the song I Read, i.e. Hamlet's confrontation with Polonius. In any case, I held off discussing it until we reached the proper speech in the play. The tune itself is unremarkable, though as usual, Hallyday's songwriters have gone beyond Shakespeare's own metaphors and introduced their own images. We'll discuss them in due course, but first, the original French lyrics, and an ugly little English translation so we can all be on the same page. The song uses a lot of colloquial French, which, as a French-Canadian, aren't in my vernacular, so hopefully I did right by them.

L'asticot-roi
(Refrain:) Un roi tombe en asticot
La cause n’est pas entendue
L’asticot devient le roi
Et la danse continue

La charogne est bon fumier
Elle devient vite moissons
Et elle nourrit la nation
Les hommes, les veaux, les poissons
La charogne redevient roi

Le croquant, le va-nu-pieds
Le croqué claquant du bec
Qui fait des rêves de bifteck
Mais qui mange du pain sec
Fait pourtant festin de roi

(Refrain)

Quand le lion, roi des félins
Partage avec sa féline
Une gazelle, sa voisine
Pas un des deux n’imagine
Que le roi bouffe du roi

Quand un gros roi dit «j’ai faim»
Pas un cuisinier ne bouffe
Et le roi boit, le roi bouffe
Mais l’arête qui l’étouffe
Est aussi morceau de roi

(Refrain x2)

The Worm King
(Refrain:) A king becomes a worm
The cause is not heard
The worm becomes the king
And the dance continues

Carrion makes good compost
It soon becomes the harvest
And it feeds the nation
Men, calves, fish
The carrion becomes the king again

The yokel, the tramp
The chewed-up man with chattering teeth
Who dreams of beefsteaks
But eats dry bread
Still eats a king's feast

(Refrain)

When the lion, king of felines
Shares with its female
A gazelle, their neighbor
Neither of them imagines
That the king eats king

When a fat king says "I'm hungry"
Not a single cook eats
And the king drinks, the king eats
But the fishbone he chokes on
Is also a piece of king

(Refrain x2)

The song uses a number of eating-related words in some figurative sense, not all of which I was able to translate. For example, "yokel" is "croquant", which literally means "crunchy" or "biting". But you can see how the lyrics take the concept of a beggar eating the fish that ate the worm that fed of a king's rotting corpse and widens it. Hallyday links it to Denmark entire by having carrion enrich the soil that feeds the country and the next king. He also creates the image of a kingly lion devouring its "neighbor" (with its queen), unknowingly eating of its own kind. As with the image of the king's cooks going hungry while he chokes on food, we are presented with the king as parasite. Is this part of the original image? Not entirely, though the very idea of a nobleman (Hamlet) even mentioning his country's poor is a subtle indictment of the king's rule, a dramatic representation of the gap between Denmark's classes. Finally, we have the king choking on king, restoring the veiled threat Hamlet makes. Claudius will die because he committed regicide.

III.iii. The Confessional - French Rock Opera

With Tue-le/Kill Him, Johnny Hallyday does away with the King's confession to the audience and his plight in facing his maker, incapable of remorse. It only deals with Hamlet's own feelings coming upon Claudius a-praying, and uses the chorus as a kind of angel/devil on his shoulder, pushing him to kill with whispers and full-on opera, but also warning him that to do so now could result in Claudius going to Heaven. Here are the lyrics and my usual doggerel translation.

Tue-le
Tue-le ! Tue-le ! Tue-le !

Quand des sept capitaux
Il choisit un péché
Quand il a un pied en enfer

Quand il manque une marche
Qu’il jure le « nom de Dieu »
Quand il a un pied en enfer

Tue-le ! Tue-le ! Tue-le !

Quand ces doigts sont crochus
Qu’il recompte ses sous
Quand il a un pied en enfer

Quand il se fait plaisir
En rêvant de seins doux
Quand il a un pied en enfer

Mais ne le tue pas quand il prie
Avec Dieu on ne sait jamais
Ne l’envoie pas au paradis

Tue-le ! Tue-le ! Tue-le !

Quand pour tourner la page
Il compte sur le vent
Quand il a un pied en enfer

Quand il boit comm’un trou
Et qu’il pisse à côté
Quand il a un pied en enfer

Tue-le ! Tue-le ! Tue-le !

Quand sa tête est gonflé
Quand il se prend pour un Dieu
Quand il a un pied en enfer

Quand des sept capitaux
Il envie les péchés
Quand il a les pieds en enfer

Mais ne le tue pas quand il prie
Avec Dieu on ne sait jamais
Ne l’envoie pas au paradis

Mais ne le tue pas quand il prie
Avec Dieu on ne sait jamais
Ne l’envoie pas au paradis

Tue-le !

Kill Him
Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!

When of the seven deadly
He chooses a sin
When he has a foot in hell

When he misses a step
When he curses "My God"
When he has a foot in hell

Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!

When his fingers are crooked
When he counts his money again
When he has a foot in hell

When he pleases himself
By dreaming of soft breasts
When he has a foot in hell

But don't kill him while he prays
With God we never know
Don't send him to paradise

Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!

When, to turn the page
He counts on the wind
When he has a foot in hell

When he drinks like a hole
And he pisses on the side
When he has a foot in hell

Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!

When his head is swollen
When he thinks he's God
When he has a foot in hell

When of the seven deadly
He envies the sins
When he has a foot in hell

But don't kill him while he prays
With God we never know
Don't send him to paradise

But don't kill him while he prays
With God we never know
Don't send him to paradise

Kill him!

As you can see, while his impulses (to kill or not to kill) are handled by voices sung in his ear, his own lyrics are all to do with planning the better moment to murder Claudius. Just like in the play, the Prince lists the various occasions when Claudius already as "a foot in hell", and would thus be easy to "trip up". Hallyday's song creates its own imagery, including a rather subtle image of combined lazyness and vindictiveness (When, to turn the page / He counts on the wind), which is also a play on the word "count" used in the image of greed. The Seven Deadly Sins are in fact all represented, the most ironic being Pride, a line which creates the image of God in Hell. The last lyric sung by Hamlet is a strange one about the King envying one of the deadly sins, which I'm still not sure how to interpret, though it seems to me it could be the only element of Claudius' dilemma left in this highly edited version of the play. His sin is so great, that he envies the other sins their relative unimportance. But that's a reading based on knowing what's been omitted quite well, and in the structure of this adaptation, it is probably just an image of sin plucking on sin.

Also of interest, at least if we understand the chorus to stem from Hamlet as much as his own words, is "With God we never know", which makes God a less trustworthy agent than He is in the play. It's a valid interpretation, seeing as Fortune's evils are often invoked, and Hamlet Sr.'s fate is (presumably) an unfair one. God is as uncertain as the "undiscovered country" that lies beyond death. In other words, the song makes it plain that Hamlet can't be sure killing Claudius at this point will result in a heavenly ascension, but he's taking no chances, or it's just another excuse to delay the action. The image of a mistrusted God highlights the fact that though Hamlet has a strict morally Christian world view, he is not an agent of the Divine. Indeed, his mission was given him by a creature from Hell.

III.ii. The Mouse-Trap - French Rock Opera

Un trône sans roi/Throne Without a King is a transitional piece of music on Johnny Hallyday's album, but if you use your imagination, you might see how it would have underscored action in the staged rock opera. It is placed where the Mouse-Trap would be, and through the repetition of the dirge motif Le vieux roi est mort/The Old King Is Dead already used twice before, has a similar recap function. Here is the text and a quick translation.

Un trône sans roi
Le vieux roi et mort
Depuis moins d'un mois
L'herbe sur sa tombe
Ne pousse encore pas

Le vieux roi est mort
Le temps d'une messe
Il est notre roi
Il cale ses fesses

Throne Without a King
The old king is dead
For less than a month
The grass on his tomb
Still does not grow

The old king is dead
The span of a [church] service
He is our king
He sinks his ass

It is telling that the chorus sings here and not Hamlet, though as we know from the play, he has written their words. This is the murder as presented by the Players. We could well imagine the processional music underscoring the arrival of the Court to the playhouse. Then, suspenseful stings over the dumb show, probably dance-like. Finally, we end with the result of a king's death, and the familiar Dead Old King theme. The first two lines are the same, but reiterate, as Hamlet does in the text, the temporal collapse caused by his grief. Using the chorus/Players translates that collapse to the People, foreshadowing their later rebellion. In fact, the lines here go further, from "less than a month" to "the span of a church service". The King has been forgotten by the time his funeral service is over.

And then time is collapsed even further when a new King shows up in the next line, so Hamlet Sr. has been forgotten in the breath between two lines. Those final lines do play on an ambiguity, as the "king" is actually two separate characters in the play. On the one hand, there is a resistance to a new leadership, the dead king being that of the people, even as his descent into the ground is mocked with colorful language. On the other, the new king is now that of the people - speaking to an ironic interchangeability as far as commoners are concerned - and a mockery of his sitting on that empty throne, now filled. That is the story of The Mouse-Trap.

III.i. The Nunnery Scene - French Rock Opera

On the album, the song "Ophélie! Oh, folie!" comes rather early, and admittedly, it refers to the "kissing carrion" line during Hamlet and Polonius' encounter. However, the song also seems to reference the breeding of sinners, and in its title and ending, Ophelia's impending madness. I have therefore chosen to discuss it here, where all those ideas intersect. Here's the the original text in French, and a rough translation.

Ophélie! Oh, folie!
Le soleil, sans vergogne
Fait d’une peau vermeille
Une infecte charogne
Fuit devant le soleil
Ophélie, Ophélie, Ophélie
Puis le vent, le soleil
Pourrir est sa besogne
Fuit devant le soleil
Il te fera charogne
Ophélie, Ophélie, Ophélie

Ophelia! Oh Madness!
The sun, without shame
Turns a vermilion skin
Into a loathsome carrion
Flee before the sun
Ophelia, Ophelia, Ophelia
Then the wind, the sun
Rot is its work
Flee before the sun
It will make you carrion
Ophelia, Ophelia, Ophelia

What the translation cannot reproduce, of course, is how "Ophélie" and "Oh Folie" sound alike, a trait or fate built into the character in the French version. In English, one might equate her name with "Oh Feel-ia" and even if Shakespeare wasn't making a point with the name, its sonority might have a subliminal impact on the audience. Word play is a major part of the Bard's style, so we can't completely dismiss it.

The song, played as an almost dirge-like lamentation for the character, begins with the image of women as carrion, and their children maggots, fathered by the sun, a common symbol for the male principle. He tells her to run away from the sun (in English, we might be tempted to play on sun/son, but no such relationship exists in French), which ties it to the Nunnery Scene in that way. The second movement of the song uses an angelic choir where the title is used to confuse the two terms ("Ophélie" and "Oh folie") together, making them undifferentiated. As the tempo accelerates, we can feel Ophelia's mind spinning and careening as she dives into madness. Her whole story is here. On the album, we won't hear of her again until her death.

III.i. To Be or Not to Be - French Rock Opera

At the center of Johhny Hallyday's Hamlet (at the beginning of Disc 2) is a dirge, constructed as a show-stopping number based on the play's most famous speech. It uses the opening line quite a lot (and as a title), with no translation. Though "Être ou ne pas être" is a famous French phrase, Hallyday opts for the original text because, well, it's famous no matter what language you speak. Before getting into it, here are the words, and then my doggerel translation.

To be or not to be
To be or not to be
To be or not to be
To be or not to be

To be or not to be
To be or not to be
To be or not to be

Encore choisir, choisir encore
Choisir entre chair et poussière
Entre bleu ciel et ver de terre
Pourrir du coeur, mourir du corps
Quelle question tragique à poser

To be or not to be
To be or not to be
To be or not to be

Mourir, dormir, un point c’est tout
Plus de justice à voir boiter
D’amours bafoués à voir ramper
Dormir seul au fond de son trou
Quelle question mortelle à poser

To be or not to be
To be or not to be
To be or not to be

Mourir, dormir, rêver peut-être ?
Voir chaque nuit les souvenirs
Sortir de l’ombre comme des vampires
Et vous tournoyer dans la tête
Quelle question vitale à poser

To be or not to be
To be or not to be
To be or not to be

Sans cette peur au cul blafard
Quel est le fou ou le peureux
Qui perdrait le temps d’être vieux
Alors qu’il suffit d’un poignard
Pour que la question soit réglée

To be or not to be...

To Be Or Not To Be
To be or not to be x6

Again to choose, to choose again
To choose between flesh and dust
Between blue sky and earthworm
Rot of the heart, die of the body
What a tragic question to ask

To be or not to be x3

To die, to sleep, and that's all there is to it
No more justice to see someone limp
Of ridiculed love, to see someone crawl
To sleep alone at the bottom of one's hole
What a mortal question to ask

To be or not to be x3

To die, to sleep, perchance to dream
Each night to see memories
Come out of the shadows like vampires
And spin in your head
What a vital question to ask

To be or not to be x3

Without that pale-assed fear
What fool or coward
Would give up growing old
When all you need is a dagger
To answer the question

To be or not to be...

The odd thing about the arrangement is that it has back-up singers. In the rock opera, these usually represent the people, courtly whispers or Danish opinion. Hamlet's voice is Hallyday's, and in this most private of moments (spied on or not), he is somehow accompanied by others. I'd like to say that it's the line reverberating across history, its sentiment universal. I rather think it's a mistake, thematically, and that Hallyday's wish to make this a bigger production number made him forget the conventions of his own opera.

The question gets asked a lot in this version of the speech, acting as a driving beat. It is asked in other ways as well. For example, the question is initially "tragic" and "mortal" (some word play here, since "mortelle" means both mortal and lethal), and later, "vital". Hamlet moves between life and death, flesh and dust. The choice predominates. The first line gives a false choice ("Again to choose, to choose again"), while also making the choice a repeated one. Hamlet has been on the line between choosing life and suicide since before the start of the play. Hallyday correctly understands this speech as a last time he will consider death as an alternative to action. He makes the choice again, but for the last time. Are we also to understand he believes the question to be a false choice? Because ultimately, it is. Hamlet may claim to long for death, but he argues strongly against it. Given who he is, and the fact that he has not yet taken his own life, this contemplation can have only one outcome. And yet, he hasn't acted. The alternative to dying has not been living, but rather, doing nothing. His thoughts, here described as vampires, have sucked the action out of him. So while Hamlet was never going to kill himself, he needs to strike the option off his list with words, so that he can move on to the active option of revenge.

Lost in translation
There's a nice pun in "Entre bleu ciel et ver de terre" lost in the literal translation I offered. "Bleu ciel" is not truly "blue sky", but rather "sky blue", the color. "Ver de terre" is "earthworm" (a link to the one going through the guts of Hamlet's metaphorical beggar), but is homophone of "vert de terre", which would mean "earth green". In French, the choice is between two colors, on representing life and the other death, though in the funereal world of the speech, could both be visions of the afterlife.

II.ii. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern - French Rock Opera

R&G's failed interrogation of Hamlet is best represented by the song Quel mal te bouffe? (What's Eating You?), a short ditty (excerpt via Amazon) sung by the choir (Hallyday only sings Hamlet's parts) which is inappropriately (or for R&G, quite appropriately) ridiculous-sounding. The French lyrics, followed by my quick and dirty translation:

Quel mal te bouffe?
Quel mal te bouffe?
Quel mal te ronge?
Quel mal te ronge?
Quel mal te bouffe?

Quel mal te bouffe?
Quel mal te ronge?
Dis-nous, dis-nous, dis-nous, dis-nous...
Des anges! Des anges! Des anges! Des anges!

(Répétez tout)

What's Eating You?
What's eating you?
What's gnawing at you?
What's gnawing at you?
What's eating you?

What's eating you?
What's gnawing at you?
Tell us, tell us, tell us, tell us...
Angels! Angels! Angels! Angels!

(Repeat all)

The familiar vocabulary used is in line with R&G's usual depiction as people who do not connect with Hamlet's deep emotions. "What's eating you?" reduces Hamlet's mal d'âme to a mild irritant. Hallyday glosses over the "What a piece of work is a man" speech in the last line when Hamlet reveals (ambiguously, because it's still not his voice) he is "bugged" by angels. A bizarre response in the context of the song, but those who know the play can see a connection between this answer and the line "How like an angel". As sung by R&G, it's almost like they're claiming some kind of innocence in all this, again tying into the irony of Hamlet's speech.

II.ii. The Fishmonger Scene - French Rock Opera

Halliday's Fishmonger Scene does away with Polonius entirely and makes it about Hamlet's reading, and in so doing gives us a reflective, personal song that intersects with various ideas in the play. You can listen to it HERE, and I follow the text with a rough translation.

Je lis
Quand la vie est jolie, jolie, je lis
Quand il fait triste, et il fait gris, je lis
Quand je suis seul dans mon lit, je lis
Quand même les rêves me fuient, je lis
Quand je cherche un coin d’oubli, je lis
Quand j’ai besoin d’un alibi, je lis
Quand on me sonne l'hallali, je lis
Quand je perds le goût de la vie, je lis
Quand je lis, je lis, je lis quoi ?
Des mots…

I read
When life is pretty, pretty, I read
When it is sad, and it is gray, I read
When I'm alone in my bed, I read
When even my dreams desert me, I read
When I look for a forgotten corner, I read
When I need an alibi, I read
When they trumpet the kill, I read
When I lose the taste for life, I read
When I read, I read, I read what?
Words...

The short song has Hamlet reading, rain or shine, homogenizing his life which he will later compare to a prison. Most of the lines speak to his fatalism, undercutting the hopefulness of the first in which the near homonyms jolie (pretty) and je lis (I read) are playfully confused. The song could almost be sung with jolie (pretty) in place of je lis (I read) throughout, extending the irony. Is Ophelia on Hamlet's mind still? Is his loneliness (colored by his reading books, to use Polonius' words in a later scene) making his mind wander from the page to the love of his life? There may lie the contempt one might understand from the "punchline". I'm reminded of the phrase Jonathan Swift wrote on the envelope containing a lock of his dead wife's hair, "Only a woman's hair". The words Hamlet reads are meant to be a refuge, but in no way do they replace the relationships he has broken off. Without the comic context of the Hamlet-Polonius interplay, "words, words, words" takes on some of the meaning behind the "What a rogue and peasant slave am I" speech, in which Hamlet is outraged that he must "unpack his heart with words", or the earlier speech on how his grief cannot be properly contained in "actions that a man might play".

The song reveals a possible staging where "words, words, words" can be pronounced in an aside to take on more personal meaning.

II.ii. Brevity - French Rock Opera

Johnny Hallyday's Hamlet is very much about Hamlet's point of view, and while we may hear the peasantry moan in the choir, there really aren't songs to represent scenes in which Hamlet does not appear. Now, while Hamlet does not appear in person in Polonius' big moment, he is present in the form of his letter to Ophelia. After all, it is his words we hear (butchered though they might be by foolish Polonius). Hamlet is such a large character that he tends to be on stage even when he isn't. The letter IS represented by a song called Doubt (click for the You-Tube "video"). As usual, here are the words in French, followed by a very bad (but accurate) translation by yours truly.

Doute
Doute
Que le soleil nous tourne autour
Qu’une étoile morte puisse briller Doute
Que la vérité ne soit vraie
Mais ne doute pas de mon amour Doute
Qu’un Dieu ait tout fait en 7 jours
Et que la terre soit une poussière Doute
De l’infini, de l’univers
Mais ne doute pas de mon amour

COEUR
Piège à bécasses trompe femelles
N’écoute pas le loup qui bêle
Sa langue est d’or, mais ses dents brillent
Piège à pucelles et trompe-filles

Doute
Que l’enfer soit plus chaud qu’un four
Et que la gravité ait un centre
Ô Doute
Qu’un enfant vive dans un ventre
Mais ne doute pas de mon amour Doute
Que mon coeur batte comm’un tambour
Et que ma vie coule des pendules Doute
Qu’un jour je crève comm’une bulle
Mais ne doute pas de mon amour

Doubt
Doubt
That the sun turns around us
That a dead star could shine Doubt
The truth be a liar
But do not doubt my love Doubt
That a God did everything in 7 days
And that the Earth is a dust mote Doubt
The infinite, the universe
But do not doubt my love

CHORUS (choir)
Traps for woodcocks trick females
Don't listen to the wolf that bleats
His tongue is gold, but his teeth shine
Traps for maids trick the girls

Doubt
That hell he hotter than an oven
And that gravity has a centre
O Doubt
That a child live in a belly
But do not doubt my love Doubt
That my heart beats like a drum
And that my life drips off clocks Doubt
That a day I will burst like a bubble
But do not doubt my love

CHORUS repeats twice

We recognize Hamlet's poem immediately ("Doubt") and Hallyday even translates actual elements from it ("that the stars doth move"; "truth to be a liar"). He also picks up lines from elsewhere in the play, such as Polonius' own doubt in the chorus ("springes to catch woodcocks"). So in the same song, Hamlet implores Ophelia not to doubt his love, even as the choir plays Polonius' (and popular opinion? the audience's?) doubts concerning Hamlet's true intentions. While the chorus plays with a distinct animal theme, Hamlet's sections are more nihilistic. The sun is a dead star, Earth is a particle of dust, hell is invoked, and time is an enemy, not a friend. The suggestion of pregnancy is an intriguing one, and makes us wonder if Hallyday thought Ophelia might have been pregnant. There is talk later of breeding sinners, and Hamlet teases/tortures Polonius with the possibility of Ophelia conceiving. Is Ophelia's suicide also an abortion? This isn't something that's attempted in the various filmed versions, but the play hints at it in various ways (and yet, it's the first time I've thought about it).

Of course, we're allowed to doubt this, so Hallyday may be reacting to the suggestion, but doesn't give us a definitive answer (and neither did Shakespeare). It can also be interpreted as Hamlet's trademark nihilism denying his own birth, just as he denies his own mother.

I.v. Swearing Oaths - French Rock Opera

At around this point in the Hallyday's double album, the timeline gets a little tenuous. Songs are, by their nature, not as linearly narrative as drama is, and are closer cousins to the soliloquy. Interior voices, heightened reality. In Hallyday's Hamlet, where does the first Act end and the second begin? I believe the shift from one to the other is represented by the next two songs, Je suis fou (I Am Mad) and On a peur pour lui (We're Afraid for Him). The first is Hamlet's self-acknowledged switch from sanity to madness, the other the reaction his friends have to his change in behavior. As usual, expect a certain amount of doggerel in the translations:

Je suis fou
Je suis fou comm’une tomate
Je ne tiens plus sur mes pattes
Je marche et vais de travers
Je vois rouge et je suis vert

Refrain:
Pardonne-moi, fou du roi
Si je suis plus fou que toi

Je suis fou comme une ficelle
Je me déroule, je m’emmêle
Je me détache, je m’accroche
Je m’use et je m’affiloche

Je suis fou comm’un navire
Et je vogue sur le délire
Plus d’étoiles, une nuit d’encre
Je ne sais où jeter l’ancre

Je suis fou comm’un soleil
Que se soit par la bouteille
Que ce soit par Ophelie
Je couche avec la folie

I Am Mad
I am mad like a tomato
I can't stand on my own paws
I walk and go astray
I see red and I am green

Refrain:
Forgive me, king's jester
If I'm madder than you

I an mad like a string
I unfurl, I get tangled
I detach, I get snagged
I get used and I get frayed

I am mad like a ship
And I float on delirium
No more stars, an inky night
I don't know where to drop anchor

I am mad like a sun
Whether through the bottle
Whether through Ophelia
I sleep with madness

This lament pretty definitely tells us that Hallyday considers Hamlet's madness to be real. This is Hamlet's voice and he doesn't leave any room for ambiguity. He expresses sadness at what he has become, and in the closing parts of the song, starts laughing maniacally as the chorus throws high-pitched "He is mad!" at him and he repeats key lines from the song. Many of the similes used will seem strange in English, but that's because they were chosen for their rhyme schemes in French (a mad tomato?). On the other hand, those nonsense words invoke Hamlet's madness. The mention of madness in a bottle may, in fact, be more about Hallyday's own experiences with the rockstar lifestyle than Hamlet's, given his railing against the king's rouse.

Also note the foreshadowing of Ophelia's madness and Hamlet's relationship with poor Yorick. The latter creates an early link between Hamlet's madness and the king's jester who in part helped raise him. We'll have more cause to talk about Yorick as another father figure in Hamlet's life down the road.

That was Hamlet's interior monologue. Now comes the reaction.

On a peur pour lui
J'ai peur pour son coeur
J'ai peur pour sa tête
Et ses maux de coeur [not sure]
Il se monte la tête [not sure]

J'ai peur pour sa tête
J'ai peur pour son coeur
On a peur pour lui
On a peur de lui
On a peur pour lui
On a peur de lui
On a peur pour lui
On a peur de lui
etc.

We're Afraid for Him
I'm afraid for his heart
I'm afraid for his head
And his heartaches [not sure]
Something gets to his head [not sure]

I'm afraid for his head
I'm afraid for his heart
We're afraid for him
We're afraid of him
We're afraid for him
We're afraid of him
We're afraid for him
We're afraid of him
etc.

Half this track, about a minute, is just eerie driving music. If the Rock Opera were actually to be staged, we could well imagine some sort of action occurring here. It's noteworthy that while Hamlet's descent into madness is a relatively straightforward lament, Horatio's perception of the same even is creepy and strange. After that minute, the chorus shows up with an altogether too happy sing-along with a couple of undecipherable lines (I've been looking at various sources, but they either don't give lyrics for this track or else don't make any grammatical sense). The mix of concern and fear inspired by Hamlet's behavior takes us into the second Act, from Horatio and Marcellus to the whole of the Court.

I.v. The Ghost's Tale - French Rock Opera

Johnny Hallyday covers this sequence with not one, but three entire songs. Prière du spectre à Hamlet (The Ghost Prays Hamlet) has the Ghost asking Hamlet to avenge him. Roi vivant (Living King) represents the bulk of the Ghost's story. And J'effacerai de ma mémoire (I Will Erase From my Memory) deals with Hamlet swearing to avenge his father. Each title is linked to the song on you-tube for your listening pleasure. As usual, the full text of each song and its pedestrian translation (for clarity's and not art's sake) follow:

Prière du spectre à Hamlet
Une ombre qui venait de l’ombre
Une ombre noire, une ombre sombre
Une ombre a crié, «oh, venge-moi»
Une ombre qui apparaissait de l’ombre
D’un roi du royaume des ombres
Une ombre a crié «oh, venge-moi»
Une ombre qui sortait de terre
Une ombre en forme de mon père
Une ombre a crié «oh, venge-moi»

The Ghost Prays Hamlet
A shadow that came out of shadow
A black shadow, a somber shadow
A shadow cried "O, avenge me!"
A shadow that appeared from shadow
Of a king of the realm of shadows
A shadow cried "O, avenge me!"
A shadow that came out of the earth
A shadow in the shape of my father
A shadow cried "O, avenge me!"

The song starts out as the "Le vieux roi est mort/The Old King Is Dead" dirge, but as soon as Hallyday starts singing, a blues-pop feel comes in to thwart expectations. The song describes the Ghost as a shadow, dark and hellish. Only in the last couples lines is it revealed to be the father of Hamlet, and even there, Hallyday doesn't let go of the Ghost's ambiguity. It is a shadow in the SHAPE of his father, which doesn't make it his actual father. As with Hamlet's questioning of Horatio's story in Scene 2, the Ghost is required to convince the doubting Hamlet. In the play, by giving the details of his murder; in the rock opera, with another song.

In fact, Roi vivant, though on a separate track with its own title, musically just continues straight from Prière, the last note of one covering the starting piano riffs. It sounds like another movement of the same piece, with backup singers coming in with their part, and indeed it is. It's all the same scene.

Roi vivant
Pars pas, il veut savoir
Pars pas, oui ton histoire
Pars pas, il veut te voir
"Sur mon coeur de roi dormant
Ils ont posé un serpent
Dans ma vie de roi vivant
Il a planté ses crocs blanc
Et mon coeur de roi dormant
N’a plus été coeur battant
Roi vivant, roi dormant
Roi mourant, roi d'antan

Living King
Don't go, he wants to know
Don't go, yes your story
Don't go, he wants to see you
"On my sleeping king's heart
They put a snake
In my living king's life
It planted its white fangs
And my sleeping king's heart
Was no longer a beating heart"
Living king, sleeping king
Dying king, king of old

The first tree lines are sung by the chorus, outside voices commenting on the action (where most songs are in Hamlet's voice). They ask the Ghost to stay and tell his story, a different take on "I will not go further" that turns it into Hamlet's first "test" of the Ghost's agenda. Hamlet takes noting at face value, and here doubts his father(?)'s words. He needs proof in the form of details. Do these details ring true? An interesting thing that's done in these opening lines is that "Pars pas" (Don't go) sounds a lot like "Papa", calling out to the father through the sounds of the words.

The section in quotation marks is spoken, rather than sung, in the Ghost's voice. The music evokes courtly medieval music, and so the past. It tells the story of the murder, but does not reveal the murderer's identity. Either the audience's knowledge of the play is taken for granted or it becomes more of a murder mystery (not that there are many suspects other than Claudius, seeing as the songs uniformly look down on him). Possibly, had the rock opera been successfully staged, the action on stage would have made it clear. The poison is represented by a snake, continuing the Garden of Eden metaphor from the play ("oh what a falling off was there"), with a strong play on the epithets, each one used as a punchy reveal (in French coming after the noun). The practice continues in the next section as acoustic guitar riffs and the chorus take over. Those last lines take Hamlet Sr. from living king to forgotten king in four short phrases, then repeat them in a fade, cycling towards an actual end and sending the Ghost back into shadow.

J'effacerai de ma mémoire
J’effacerai de ma mémoire
Tout mes souvenirs d’enfant
Depuis couper le cordon
Jusqu’à ma première dent

J’effacerai de ma mémoire
Mes souvenirs de jeunesse
Depuis mes derniers boutons
Jusqu’à ma première caresse

J’effacerai de ma memoire
Depuis mon premier jour
Jusqu’à la nuit qui vient
Et dans le livre de mon histoire
Les pages deviendront blanches
Du début jusqu’au mot fin

J’effacerai de ma mémoire
Tous me souvenirs d’amour
Depuis mon dernier « je t ‘aime »
Jusqu’à mon premier « toujours »

J’effacerai de ma mémoire
Tous mes souvenirs d’hier
Depuis mon premier poême
Jusqu’à ma dernière guerre

J’effacerai de ma memoire
Mes souvenirs de demain
Et ma tête se videra
Je serai fou, enfin

J’effacerai même ma mémoire
Et le néant s’ouvrira
Mais je ne t’oublierai pas
J’y plongerai avec toi

I Will Erase From my Memory
I will erase from my memory
All my memories of childhood
From the cutting of the cord
To my first tooth

I will erase from my memory
All my memories of youth
From my last pimples
To my first caress

I will erase from my memory
From my first day
To the night that comes
And in the book of my history
The pages will become white
From the beginning to the word end

I will erase from my memory
All my memories of love
From my last "I love you"
To my first "always"

I will erase from my memory
All my memories of yesterday
From my first poem
To my last war

I will erase from my memory
All my memories of tomorrow
And my head will empty itself
I will be mad, finally

I will erase from my memory
And the void will open
But I won't forget you
I will dive into it with you

Hallyday takes the table of memory metaphor and runs with it. Though in the play, Hamlet enumerates what he erases from his memory to make room for his revenge, Hallyday gets more specific, in a way that only the ballad form can. He erases his childhood, then his youth, and so on, until he's actually erasing his future, dooming himself. He has no future except as an instrument of his father's revenge (of course, we know he's not able to respect that promise). In the last stanza, he jumps into the void to join with his father, making their "missions" one and the same by osmosis. This mirrors what is usually done in the play, with Hamlet collapsing at the end of the sequence. The empty space he has created in his mind is akin to the empty space under the earth where his father is doomed to walk (at the very least empty of God's love, in Christian cosmology). The next time we see Hamlet in the rock opera, he will have gone mad, as heralded here. Hallyday leaves little room for ambiguity on that point.

Act I Scene 4 - French Rock Opera

Johnny Hallyday's rock anthem for this Scene leaves the Ghost for later and concentrates on the King's rouse, turning it into a full-blown orgy. You can hear the song HERE, but the words follow, and then my attempt at an English translation. Excuse the doggerel. As usual, I've not tried to reproduce the meter or turn into a good song.

L'orgie
Allumer les lanternes rouges
Le palais se transforme en bouge
La viande est rouge, le vin est rouge
Le sang est rouge, les sexes bougent

Le vin couve et l’orgie s’attise
Les rires deviennent gras comme des porcs
Les voiles de deuil font du striptease
Le noir devient multicolore

refrain:
Du beau, du bon, du grand roi
Voyez mon beau père le crapaud
Du beau, du bon, du grand roi
Grossir et devenir pourceau

Les doigts gras tachent les corsages
Ils glissent de seins jusqu’en croupes
Les mains préparent le voyage
Les peaux s’appellent, les corps se groupent

D’après les mains il sont bien douze
A s’emmêler en sarabande
Ces apôtres de la partouze
Si pleins, si saouls, qu’aucun ne bande

refrain

Ce chien de roi, ce roi des chiens
La queue en baguette de tambour
Qui en rotant du vin du Rhin
Prend la reine et lui fait l’amour

refrain

The Orgy
Light all the red lanterns
The palace becomes a dive
The meat is red, the wine is red
The blood is red, sexes move

The wine smoulders and the flames of the orgy are fanned
The laughs becomes as coarse as hogs
The veils of mourning do a striptease
Black turns to many colors

refrain:
The handsome, the good, the great king
See my stepfather the toad
The handsome, the good, the great king
Fatten and become a swine

Greasy fingers stain corsages
Slip from breasts to rump
Hands prepare their voyage
Skins call each other, bodies get together

From the hands, they must be a dozen
Mixing together in a racket
These apostles of the party
So full, so drunk, that none can get an erection

refrain

This dog of a king, this king of dogs
His tail like a drumstick
That, belching the wine of the Rhine,
Takes the queen and makes love to her

refrain

Hallyday creates strong, almost surreal images that may well be in Hamlet's mind. Lanterns cast a red light that makes the scene hellish in its carnality, at once about lust and gluttony. He also brings back the irony of the funereal wedding, with black veils coming off in a most lascivious way. Animal imagery is equally dominant, in line with Hamlet later calling Claudius a beast.

Hallyday/Hamlet sings all the words except "The handsome, the good, the great king", which the chorus sings. They may be the participants of the orgy in this case. Though the line is entirely ironic, Hamlet himself cannot bring himself to say them. The rouse is much more extreme than in staged productions, but with only songs to recreate the feeling of the play, it is fitting that Hallyday has gone for the operatic.

I.ii. Ghost Stories - French Rock Opera

This part of the scene is covered by a short 1min15 song called Le Spectre du Roi (The Spectre of the King). Part of it can be heard HERE, as usual, and the last bit is HERE. The complete lyrics in French and an attempted translation follow:

Le Spectre du Roi
Du fond du royaume des ombres
Le vieux roi nous est revenu
Son ombre est ressorti de l'ombre
Et nous l'avons vu, nous l'avons vu

Si le roi refuse sa tombe
Et qu'il revienne, comme je vous vois
J'irai au royaume des ombres
Chercher le comment, le pourquoi
J'irai au royaume des ombres
Chercher le comment, le pourquoi

The Spectre of the King
From the depths of the realm of shadows
The old king has returned to us
His shadow has come out of the shadows
And we saw him, we saw him

If the king refuses his tomb
And he returns, as I see you
I'll go to the realm of shadows
Find the how and the why
I'll go to the realm of shadows
Find the how and the why

The first four lines are choppily sung by a children's choir, turning Horatio and the soldiers into fairies or spirits. It's an odd choice, but Hallyday does this a lot to differentiate Hamlet from other characters. It does work on the context of the song at setting up a supernatural element. Once those are done, the electric guitar jumps in (Hamlet is a rock star in this) and Jos Dassin-like, Hamlet speaks rather than sings his lines. This is his soliloquy, and the echo on his voice has the same effect as the voice-over used in some of the movie versions. He repeats the last lines a few times, crying in the wilderness at nothing, and the music peters out before he does before the next track comes on.

Looking at the lyrics themselves, Hallyday would have Hamlet go to hell itself to get answers from the Ghost. Not something that happens in the play, but as we'll see, some directors like to turn the Ghost's surroundings into a hellish place, and playing on the irony of the play, we might infer that the Ghost may walk the soil of Denmark because it has slipped into an evil realm thanks to its corrupt leader.

I.ii. Enter Hamlet - French Rock Opera

As I said under Act I Scene 1, Hallyday actually starts his musical vision of Hamlet with the first soliloquy. It explains the premise, so that's as good a place to start as anywhere. The song is "Le vieux roi est mort" (The Old King Is Dead). Listen to a bit of it HERE.

Here are the complete lyrics in French, followed by my rough translation:

Le vieux roi est mort
Le vieux roi est mort depuis moins d'un mois
L'herbe sur sa tombe ne pousse encore pas
Le vieux roi est mort mais pas encore froid
Qu'on change tout les draps pour un autre roi

Le royaume entier a porté le deuil
Suivi le cortège en criant «je t'aime»
Mais il n'est pas d'arbre perdant une feuille
Qui ne continue à vivre quand même

Ma mère n'est que reine, la reine n'est que femme
La femme n'est que chienne, un batard l'enflamme
Casse toi oh ma voix, brise toi mon coeur
Mon amour, tais-toi, pleure à l'intérieur

Il a mis du blanc sur la reine en noir
Tous deux ont dit «oui» mais leurs voix tremblaient
C'était moitié rêve, moitié cauchemar
D'un oeil ils riaient, de l'autre ils pleuraient

C'est mal et ça fait mal
Oui, c'est mal et ça fait mal
Quand un homme a trop mal
Il n'en sort que du mal!
Du mal! Du mal! Du mal!
Du mal!...

The Old King Is Dead
The old king has been dead for less than a month
The grass on his grave still does not grow
The old king is dead, but is not yet cold
Let all the sheets be changed for a new king

The entire realm has suffered the grief
Followed the procession crying "I love you"
But there is no tree that loses a leaf
That does not continue to live just the same

My mother is only a queen, the queen is only a woman
The woman is only a bitch, a bastard lights her fire
Break my voice, break my heart
My love, shut up, cry on the inside

He put white on the queen in black
Both said "yes" but their voices shook
It was half a dream, half a nightmare
With one eye they laughed and they cried with the other

It's wrong and it hurts
Yes, it's wrong and it hurts
When a man hurts too much
He only sees the evil!
The evil! The evil! The evil!
The evil!...

Notes on the translation: First, I have to stress the word "chienne" is far less harsh than "bitch", but that is nonetheless how the word translates in every sense. There is also some difficulty translating the word "mal", which can mean "wrong", "pain" and "evil". There is a play there that doesn't really translate.

Though the song does cover the wedding banquet more than Hamlet's soliloquy ("an auspicious and a dropping eye" is in there), I have placed it here for a couple of reasons. One is that Hallyday tends to voice Hamlet's point of view above all others, so it's easy to see this first song as the first soliloquy which also comments on the previous part of the scene.

The other reason is that the song features imagery that connects to the soliloque. It makes me note the connection between Denmark's "unweeded garden" and the metaphorically violated tomb of his father. His wronged father has been planted in the ground and he becomes the seed of evil from which the country's doom will spring. The moment when the Ghost becomes a "mole" is another such image which I had not previously considered. In the future, I'll take more care to look at Denmark's connection to the underworld and how the latter's gates are open to let loose evil on the former. Hamlet's father decays even as his state does.

The song also has Hamlet accuse not just his uncle and mother, but the entire country. They also loved his father, and indeed, they should be included in those who have forgotten him.

Though the song uses different images than the play does (I like the black-to-white queen, for example), it also obliquely refers to those of the play. In that way, the "common" return to nature of a corpse is featured as the tree metaphor, but Hamlet/Hallyday also mixes into the idea that a man's memory should outlive him, in his mind, forever.

Divergences from the play do exist. Hamlet Senior has been dead less than month, making the wedding even more precipitous than in the play. It also has the royal couple delivering their wedding vows with shaky voices. Excitement? Fear? Insecurity? The characters could have separate reasons for this "tell".

I have listened to this album frequently in the last decade or so, but only through this exercise have I been able to notice not only new things in the song, but in the play as well. There's something to be said for a compressed, translated and askew viewpoint on the play. On a personal note of appreciation, "Le vieux roi est mort" is one of my favorite songs on the album. I just like how it starts and its resounding pa-pa-pam punctuation.