Hamlet - the ballet

Many years ago I saw Robert Helpman in Shakespeare's "Hamlet" at Stratford on Avon; I can't remember much about it except that his performance was characterised by excessive balletic leaps and skillful sword fighting. Which is not surprising since he was primarilly a ballet dancer.
Now I read that he once adapted the play into a ballet. How on earth can that be done successfully when the play relies so much on the spoken word?
Or, as was written in a review in the Telegraph this week about a new version of "Hamlet - the ballet":
"On paper, isn't there something bizarre about adapting Shakespeare - the greatest linguistic genius - for the wordless medium of ballet? It's like investing in, say, a 1945 Mouton-Rothschild, tipping the contents down the sink, and keeping the empty bottle."
Agreed.