Opera Reviews
29 March 2024
Untitled Document

A dream in midsummer or a dystopian nightmare?



by Colin Anderson
Britten: A Midsummer Night's Dream
English National Opera
21 May 2011

Photo: Alastair MuirWhatever Shakespeare's intentions and, more pertinently for this operatic setting of his play, those of Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears (the latter the co-librettist with the composer), our thoughts on such matters need to be either disregarded or used to be critical of Christopher Alden's new production of this up-until-now magical opera.

That latter quality remains in the orchestral performance, which on this second night sounded quite wonderful with such sensitive playing (brilliant trumpet playing) and perfectly paced conducting by Leo Hussein. The score can't change of course, and so it spent most of the evening at odds with what we saw: another example of an opera setting not matching what the ear (and beyond it) receives.

One did feel for Britten. His 'boys' are well known, so too his own experiences and preferences. This seems to be the basis of Alden's direction. The setting is a school: we see only the courtyard, and the entrance over which is the legesnd, "Boys." And the set - a grey, forbidding facade which looks great courtesy of Charles Edwards, and is ideally lit by Adam Silverman, but is hardly welcoming. This is not a happy place; there is tension in the air.

It's plain that Oberon, a teacher, is a paedophile. The role is superbly sung by Iestyn Davies, his lustrous countertenor voice maybe in its difference suggesting someone with a particular tendency. This performance was Davies's first as a singer; on the first night he acted while William Towers sang. Two nights later Davies's voice seemed in fine fettle as he played his chain-smoking and disturbing character with an eye for boys.

Theseus (Paul Whelan) is upgraded to an always-seen 'old boy' who relives his bad times as a schoolboy; it seems he was once Puck. All situations seem to lead to Britten himself - who may have wished to escape his own traumas by immersing himself in work. The character does not sing until Act III. The Changeling Boy (Dominic Williams) is added to Britten's cast-list as a mute acting role; he takes the favours normally afforded to Puck (actor/acrobat Jamie Manton), the latter now remarkably static and forlorn, not in search of a magic love-potion but instead a Class-A drug. This serves the pair and intertwining lovers of, nominally, Hermia & Lysander (Tamara Gura & Allan Clayton) and Demetrius & Helena (Benedict Nelson & Kate Valentine).

There are no woods to be seen, nothing enchanted, just a succession of unlikeable characters; Tytania (Anna Christy) seems frosty if caring (for the boy that Oberon is after) and has a fetish for sharpening pencils (maybe that image is suggestive). Act II is the most disturbing, a drug-fuelled party of uninhibited no-cares chilling threat, and arson, with some banging sounds that are apposite to rowdy behaviour but not much use to Britten's score, which might be considered 'used and abused' by Alden, who seems unsympathetic to the composer's music and intentions.

That said, it's brilliantly carried off and never explicit, and the singing is mostly very distinguished. But there seems little hope here, no bright future. And with Shakespeare's language faithfully retained by Britten and Pears, and flashed up on the surtitles, we have the occasional "methinks" and reminders that we're supposed to be in Athens, whereas the eye reports 1960s' urban England; desolate, hopeless, a place not to be.

Time and again though one admired the sets, lighting and acting, and whether one applauds Alden's intentions or not there has to be admiration for his thoughtfulness and subtlety of invention and linkage, but while the ear is constantly savouring the music and its particular suggestiveness, and recalling well-serving previous productions, the aural and the visual were rarely meeting.

Act III (the school not razed to the ground after all) is perhaps the weakest act of the three, yet it contains some of the finest music, which blossoms luxuriantly, but there is also the very weak section of the Rustics' play to celebrate the marriage of Theseus to Hippolyta (Catherine Young); this tedious overlong episode (with pastiche musical invention that is second-rate Britten) is very end-of-pier and crude to boot; exasperating at times, but some people laughed like drains. Willard White, roundly sung, dourly acted, doesn't quite engage as Bottom.

So, this particular dream in midsummer is more a dystopian nightmare, provocative certainly, maybe with bait to bite on or ignore. Britten is probably the loser, both personally and certainly musically, save for the irony that both singers and players do his creativity proud. The end though is poignant and moving if not the uplifting its original creators intended. It's not what we're used to and will divide opinion, a veritable swingometer of reactions.

Text © Colin Anderson
Photo © Alastair Muir
Support us by buying from amazon.com!