By the time Benjamin Britten composed A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Aldeburgh Festival in 1960, he had already established himself as one of opera’s most penetrating literary adaptors. Both Billy Budd and The Turn of the Screw—adapted from Herman Melville and Henry James, respectively—demonstrate a fascination with psychology, and Britten’s interest in human behaviour—particularly sex—comes to the fore in his musical version of Dream.
Generally regarded as one of Shakespeare’s more light-hearted plays—it is often used as a means of introducing children to the Bard’s work—Britten maintains the bulk of the original text, but uses his musical talents to stress the romantic battleground that is established between the protagonists during their eventful night in an enchanted forest. Cleverly, each group of characters is given their own distinctive sound, with the four human lovers (Hermia, Lysander, Helena and Demetrius) singing in a distinctly romantic style, while the fairy music is rendered ethereal yet eerie.
First staged in 2008 and subsequently revived in 2013, there is much to admire in this production of Dream. The director Martin Duncan has moved the action of the opera to the 1960s, which feels highly appropriate for a production that explores the effects of mind-altering substances.
Not only does the setting lend itself well thematically to Shakespeare’s play, but Ashley Martin-Davis’s groovy costumes—including floaty dresses and patterned suits—are suitably eye-catching. It was a clever choice to dress the child chorus in blonde wigs à la Village of the Damned, as this certainly adds to their overall creepiness, and the Fairy King and Queen are clearly marked out from the other characters by being dressed head-to-toe in metallic silver.
The Athenian forest of Shakespeare’s play is constructed from sheets of translucent Perspex, with giant bubbles floating above the stage. I can imagine Johan Engels’s striking set design ruffling some feathers, but for the most part it succeeds in adding to the weirdness of the production.
Jamie Laing gives an arresting performance as Oberon, his countertenor giving the Fairy King the required amount of otherworldly grandeur. He is matched by the terrific Daisy Brown, who brings sensuality and authority to his estranged wife Titania. Henry Waddington, reprising his role for the third time, excels as Bottom the weaver—his vocals are superb and his sense of comedy impeccable.
There are lovely performances from Camilla Harris, Siân Griffiths, Peter Kirk and James Newby as the four points of a squabbling love quadrangle, and Daniel Abelson brings great physicality to the role of Puck (a non-singing part), his bestial movements putting one in mind of Gollum from The Lord of the Rings.
Despite the levity of the penultimate scene, in which the mechanicals put on their much-discussed production of Pyramus and Thisbe, I must confess that my attention began to wander at this point. For the most part, however, this staging of Dream—which has been rejigged in some respects by the revival director Matthew Eberhardt—is well-paced and engaging.
Britten’s score, which I found startlingly strange at times—particularly the glissandi in the lower strings—is vibrantly performed under the leadership of the conductor Garry Walker. Overall, Dream is a heady and bewitching experience.