In Siberian conditions more akin to The Winter's Tale, a revival of Robert Carsen's season setting of Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream offered a warm glow at the Coliseum.
Netia Jones' new production taps into Britten's silvery underworld in a staging dominated by video wizardry which is hypnotically beautiful, but comes at a price.
“Out of this wood do not desire to go!” Tytania orders Bottom. Glyndebourne's revival of Peter Hall's classic production of A Midsummer Night's Dream is eerily enchanting, weaving its spell right from the queasy double bass glissandos, which slither into Britten's score.
Roberto Abbado's precise conducting made the score tingle with life. The magical glissandi were full of mystery, the hotbed of musical detail cleanly communicated and the amorous outbursts treated with Italianate ardour.
“If music be the food of love, play on, give me excess of it.” There was certainly plenty of Shakespeare-inspired music on the bill for the London Philharmonic Orchestra's celebration of The Bard.
The cast of young professionals seemed entirely at ease in Midsummer Night’s sometimes abstruse musico-mythical world, and made their surroundings work for them.
A trip down memory lane sends our man in Aix into raptures as Robert Carsen's production of Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream comes home to Provence.
This is the one Britten work scheduled by the Metropolitan Opera this year, in Tim Albery’s production from 1996, revived most recently in 2002. The psychological designs are infused with such colour that the staging in no way shows its age.
The impressively well-drilled children’s chorus dominates this glittering production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the second component of Opera North’s Festival of Britten. 20 young performers in white, black wings on their fairy shoulders, wind solemnly in and out of the action, assemble in rows, perform versions of callisthenics exercises, and sing beautifully.
Signs of birth and death – but moreso death – flash continuously through the Latvian director Viestur Kairish’s new production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which opened the Komische Oper Berlin’s 2013/14 season.
Audiences have come to look forward to the annual co-production between Scottish Opera and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where student opera singers, orchestra players and backstage crew get a chance to partner up with their professionals across the other side of Glasgow’s Hope Street.
Britten’s only Shakespeare opera was a last-minute commission to celebrate the opening of the refurbished Jubilee Hall at the 1960 Aldeburgh Festival. Despite the narrow timescale, Britten and his collaborator and partner Peter Pears notoriously strove to adhere to the sixteen-century dramatic text as closely as possible.
"Intermezzo" has submitted an excellent and comprehensive review of the opening night of this classy new production, but I was so shocked to hear booing from neighbouring seats that perhaps I might be permitted to add this view from a relative opera novice? I've not seen this opera before, or even the Shakespeare play, so although I had nothing to compare it with, I also had nothing to miss in th
Several audience members didn't bother to return after the interval, and there were a few walkouts even before that. It seems Christopher Alden's darkly brilliant new production isn't for everybody. But those of us who stuck it out for the full three hours were rewarded with a reminder that beneath the surface of the Shakespeare-based fairy fable lurk some disquieting truths.
From the opening glissandos of Britten's opera, we know this is not Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Where the Mendelssohn / Balanchine ballet is romantic, dreamy and reminiscent of an illustrated fairytale, Britten's opera borders on the nightmarish and eerie.
Accourez au Grand Théâtre de Genève faire un rêve éveillé : de l’excellence du plateau de solistes, des couleurs de l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande dirigé avec maestria par Steven Sloane, à la rêverie offerte par la mise en scène de Katharina Thalbach, ce Britten là vous déroutera peut-être, mais vous fera rêver sûrement !
