A Midsummer Night's Dream (1981)

[randy_byers]

Oberon prepares to ensorcel Tytania

Britten's opera centers on the fairy world, opening with Oberon and Tytania (as her name is spelled here) ill-met by moonlight, which is the beginning of Act 2 in the play. This 1981 film of a production at the Glyndebourne Festival features a wonderfully dark, mysterious forest in which the fairies, the mechanicals, and the lost lovers roam. One weird element of the production design is that some of the trees are played by people wearing tree costumes who move around the stage. The tree on the left in the still above is such a one. It's one of several things in this production that made me think of Tolkien, who was famously critical of Shakespeare's diminutive fairies. Britten's fairy music is eerie, brooding, and lyrical. I would love to hear his music for Tolkien's Lothlorien and Fangorn, although as a pacifist Britten probably wouldn't have been too interested in the battle scenes in LOTR.

I've been trying to read up on 20th century opera, but I'm still not very knowledgeable. What I'm getting so far is that people who like Britten like his operas, but a A Midsummer Night's Dream, while admired, isn't rated as highly as some of his others. People who like opera acknowledge Britten as an important figure as far as 20th century composers go, but A Midsummer Night's Dream doesn't really rear its head in their calculations, which tend to focus above all on Peter Grimes and to a lesser extent on The Turn of the Screw and Billy Budd. Haven't seen or heard any of those, so for all I know they really are that much better. However, I love the music of A Midsummer Night's Dream, so if the others are better, they must be truly great. I've ordered Britten's recording of The Turn of the Screw to check it out next.

It's true that the opera radically restructures Shakespeare's play, although almost every word is taken from it. (One line was created to bridge cut material.) Theseus and Hippolyta aren't seen until the third (of three) acts. The lovers lines are probably cut next most, leaving the fairies and mechanicals least reduced, with Bottom and Tytania's tryst at the center of the action. I can't honestly say if the story works as well in the opera as in the play, because I've mostly just been listening to the music without focusing on the story. The Glyndebourne production is beautiful both musically and visually, but since I watched Act 3 a day after the first two, I wasn't sure how well it connected. Half the appeal is just hearing Shakespeare's familiar words set to such beguiling music.

By the way, I got this DVD from Netflix, which seems to have a lot of opera DVDs. I could go hog wild just on opera, if I had the time.