AN attempted elopement to evade a prohibitive law, an abduction of a human infant by supernatural beings, the transformation of a man into an animal, and the godlike coercion of a spritely minion by the King of the Fairies. These are just some of the dark imaginings that are laced through Shakespeare’s famous comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
It is little wonder, then, that the play, and indeed Benjamin Britten’s 1960 opera based upon it, end with the aforementioned subjugated sprite, Puck, apologising for any offence that may have been caused. As with the Bard’s other great comedies (take Twelfth Night, for example), the humour is attended by other, darker and more serious matters.
These dramatic contrasts and combinations are in abundant evidence in director Dominic Hill’s new production of Britten’s adaptation for Scottish Opera. From the very outset, the director’s setting of the piece is paradoxically bleak and beautiful.
That it is so is down, in no small measure, to the superb work of set and costume designer Tom Piper and lighting designer Lizzie Powell. Through the carefully lit gloom of the woods, sleeping beds are suspended in midair, while the hyperactive Puck (the excellent Michael Guest) flies chaotically through the air and tumbles clumsily to the ground.
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Much of the action of the opera – from the corporeal shenanigans of the confused Athenian lovers to the spectral interventions of the fairies – takes place within the golden frame of a glass cube. Appearing, simultaneously, like both a stage-within-a-stage and a beguiling box of charms, it serves both as an enchanted forest and an Athenian palace.
The dark-yet-comic atmosphere of the production connects perfectly with Britten’s music, which (like the libretto, co-authored by Britten and Peter Pears) is splendidly faithful to Shakespeare’s play. By turns ethereal and martial, premonitory and romantic, Britten’s score (which is given gorgeous expression by the orchestra of Scottish Opera under the baton of Stuart Stratford) is a masterpiece of modern dramatic music.
A universally impressive cast is led by American countertenor Lawrence Zazzo as Oberon, King of the Fairies, and Scottish soprano Catriona Hewitson (a Scottish Opera Emerging Artist for 2021-22), as the fairy queen Tytania. The sheer heights to which Zazzo’s extraordinary voice ascends make him the perfect choice for the otherworldly Oberon.
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Both in performance and in costume, Zazzo embodies the magical, playful and cruel aspects of his character. Hewitson, too, is a picture of gorgeously sung confidence, whether she is commanding the wonderful chorus of children (who represent the fairy army) or is cursed to fall in love with the ill-fated Bottom after he has been transformed into an ass.
Hill’s staging is marvellously funny in its comical moments. David Shipley’s playing of Bottom is gloriously lively and hilarious, while the amdram troupe’s “tedious brief scene” is a nicely executed hoot.
Above all, the production is blessed with a constant and captivating vision. This Dream is a memorably complete rendering of Britten’s opera.
At Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, March 1-5: scottishopera.org.uk
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