FULL A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM Stockholm 2023 Rodrigo Sosa Dal Pozzo, Elin Rombo, Robert Fux
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Information on the Performance
- Work Title: A Midsummer Night's Dream
- Composer: Britten Benjamin
- Libretto: Benjamin Britten, Peter Pears Libretto Text, Libretto Index
- Venue & Opera Company: Kungliga Operan, Stockholm, Sweden, Royal Swedish Operan
- Recorded: May 12,2023
- Type: Staged Opera Live
- Singers: Rodrigo Sosa Dal Pozzo, Elin Rombo, Robert Fux, Peter Kajlinger, Johan Rydh, Thorvald Bergström, Jan Sörberg, Mikael Stenbaek, Michael Axelsson, Kristian Flor, Katarina Leoson, Johanna Rudström. Vivianne Holmberg, Jihan Shin, David Risberg
- Conductor: Simon Crawford Phillips
- Orchestra: Kungliga Hovkapellet
- Chorus: Kungilga Operans Kör
- Choreographer: Joakim Stephenson
Information about the Recording
- Published by: OperaVision
- Date Published: 2023
- Format: Streaming
- Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
- Subtitles: yessubs, ensubs, othersubs
- Video Recording from: SVT Play FULL VIDEO
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
Quote from Wikipedia:
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Op. 64, is an opera with music by Benjamin Britten and set to a libretto adapted by the composer and Peter Pears from William Shakespeare’s play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It was premiered on 11 June 1960 at the Aldeburgh Festival, conducted by the composer and with set and costume designs by Carl Toms. Stylistically, the work is typical of Britten, with a highly individual sound-world – not strikingly dissonant or atonal, but replete with subtly atmospheric harmonies and tone painting. The role of Oberon was composed for the countertenor Alfred Deller. Atypically for Britten, the opera did not include a leading role for his partner Pears, who instead was given the comic drag role of Flute/Thisbe.
The plot of the opera follows that of the play, with several alterations. Most of Shakespeare’s act 1 is cut, compensated for by the opera’s only added line: “Compelling thee to marry with Demetrius.” Therefore, much greater precedence is given to the wood, and to the fairies.[1] This is also indicated by the opening portamenti strings, and by the ethereal countertenor voice that is Oberon, the male lead, who throughout is accompanied by a characteristic texture of harp and celeste, in the same way that Puck’s appearance is heralded by the combination of trumpet and snare-drum.
The opera opens with a chorus, “Over hill, over dale” from Tytania’s attendant fairies, played by boy sopranos. Other highlights include Oberon’s florid – the exotic celeste is especially notable – aria,”I know a bank” (inspired by Purcell’s “Sweeter than roses”, which Britten had previously arranged for Pears to sing), Tytania’s equally florid “Come now, a roundel”, the chorus’s energetic “You spotted snakes”, the hilarious comedy of Pyramus and Thisbe, and the final trio for Oberon, Tytania and the chorus.
The original play is an anomaly among Shakespeare’s works, in that it is very little concerned with character, and very largely concerned with psychology. Britten follows this to a large extent, but subtly alters the psychological focus of the work.[citation needed] The introduction of a chorus of boy-fairies means that the opera becomes greatly concerned with the theme of purity. It is these juvenile fairies who eventually quell the libidinous activities of the quartet of lovers, as they sing a beautiful melody on the three “motto chords” (also on the four “magic” chords) of the second act: “Jack shall have Jill/Naught shall go ill/The man shall have his mare again/And all shall be well.” Sung by boys, it could be considered that this goes beyond irony, and represents an idealised vision of a paradise of innocence and purity that Britten seems to have been captivated by throughout his life.
Britten also pays attention to the play’s central motif: the madness of love. Curiously he took the one relationship in the play that is grotesque (that of Tytania and Bottom) and placed it in the centre of his opera (in the middle of act 2). Women in Britten operas tend to run to extremes, being either predators or vulnerable prey, but Tytania is an amalgam; she dominates Bottom, but is herself completely dominated by Oberon and Puck, the couple that are usually considered to really hold power in The Dream. Their cruel pranks eventually quell her coloratura, which until she is freed from the power of the love-juice is fiendishly difficult to sing.
Britten also parodied operatic convention in less obvious ways than Pyramus and Thisbe. Like many other operas, A Midsummer Night’s Dream opens with a chorus, but it is a chorus of unbroken boys’ voices, singing in unison. After this comes the entrance of the prima donna and the male lead, who is as far away as possible from Wagner’s heldentenors, and as close as it is possible to get to Handel’s castrati of the 18th century.: “There is an air of baroque fantasy in the music.” Britten’s treatment of Puck also suggests parody. In opera, the hero’s assistant is traditionally sung by baritones, yet here we have an adolescent youth who speaks, rather than sings.
Britten thought the character of Puck “absolutely amoral and yet innocent.” Describing the speaking, tumbling Puck of the opera, Britten wrote “I got the idea of doing Puck like this in Stockholm, where I saw some Swedish child acrobats with extraordinary agility and powers of mimicry, and suddenly realised we could do Puck this way.”