by Daniel Hathaway
It takes supreme self-confidence to turn a Shakespeare comedy into an opera, and even more daring to follow up someone else’s iconic music with a score of your own. Benjamin Britten is one of the few composers who could succeed on both counts. His version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, composed in 1960 and produced by Oberlin Opera Theater earlier this month, preserves the magic of Shakespeare’s verse with atmospheric writing that stands up well to Mendelssohn’s wonderful incidental music. Directed by Jonathon Field, with Christopher Larkin and the Oberlin Orchestra in the Hall Auditorium pit, the production, of which I saw the fourth and final performance on Sunday afternoon, November 10, boasted a uniformly superb cast of Athenians, Fairies, and Rude Mechanicals. [Read more…]
When Oberon and Tytania, the King and Queen of the Fairies, have a public marital spat, Oberon sets his sights on revenge with the help of his mischievous servant Puck. Chaos ensues for everyone involved: the fairies, the royalty, and the rag-tag theater troupe. And like any good fairy tale, everything gets worked out in the end. It all makes you wonder — is this someone’s dream? 