 |
| Britten: A Midsummer Night's Dream - Oliver Barlow & fairies (Trinity Boys Choir) - Glyndebourne 2023 ( © Glyndebourne Productions Ltd. Photo: Tristram Kenton) |
Britten: A Midsummer Night's Dream; Tim Mead, Liv Redpath, Caspar Singh, Rachael Wilson, Samuel Dale Johnson, Lauren Fagan, Henry Waddington, James Way, Brandon Cedel, director: Peter Hall/Lynne Hockney, London Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor Dalia Stasevska; Glyndebourne Festival Opera
A strongly musical and well-balanced revival shows Hall's classic production to be in strong health and provides a terrific evening in the theatre.
Some opera productions endure because they allow the work space to be reinvented each time, whereas other are long-running because they become classic, they encapsulate an approach to the work that comes to define it. Remarkably, Sir Peter Hall's production of Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream for Glyndebourne debuted in 1981 and its regular revival has ensured that it has helped define a classic view of the opera.
We caught the 2023 revival of the production, now in the hands of revival director Lynne Hockney (the original choreographer) at the Glyndebourne Festival on Sunday 13 September. Dalia Stasevska conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra with Tim Mead as Oberon, Liv Redpath as Tytania, Caspar Singh as Lysander, Rachael Wilson as Hermia, Samuel Dale Johnson as Demetrius, Lauren Fagan as Helena, Henry Waddington as Quince, Patrick Guetti as Snug, Alex Otterburn as Starveling, James Way as Flute, Alasdair Elliott as Snout, Brandon Cedel as Bottom, Dingle Yandell as Theseus and Rosie Aldridge as Hippolyta. The fairies came from Trinity Boys Choir, with Oliver Barlow as Puck.
 |
| Britten: A Midsummer Night's Dream - Tim Mead, Liv Redpath - Glyndebourne 2023 ( © Glyndebourne Productions Ltd. Photo: Tristram Kenton) |
I have to confess that I had never seen the production live, though I was familiar with it from filmed performances, and on this showing the production remains in good health with few, if any, cracks showing.
John Bury's designs remain enormously effective, and his use of ten actors as part of the wood not only enables flexibility in terms of moving the woodland setting around, but has a rather unnerving effect of suggesting either that the woodland is alive or that there are people immured there in a rather scary way, adding to the sinister undertones of the fairies. These, in their neo-Elizabethan costumes are formal and fierce, creatures who exist outside human existence. There was nothing ethereal about them, they were very physical, present and other, and that included the impressive children's chorus whose members were anything but cute.
There is nothing playful or deliberately humorous about Hall's production, either in terms of the humans or the fairies, everything is taken seriously and with intent. The humour of the mechanicals comes from the fact that they are so serious about it.
From the very opening notes of the prelude, it was clear the conductor Dalia Stasevska (who made her Glyndebourne debut at the opening of this revival) took a very strong view of the score. Her speeds were on the steady side, allowing the music plenty of space and their was a sculptural quality to the individual lines. Clarity seemed paramount, and from the strong opening notes in the bass, each line of the music was shaped. The result was a long way from the ethereal mix that sometimes happens in this opera, here the orchestral contribution wasn't decorative, instead it added to the strong, unsettling atmosphere of the work. Each instrumental prelude or interlude had such a striking personality; the opening to Act Two was lovingly crafted, managing to be unsettling and intense. This was a passionate account too, and the moments when emotions run high were strongly registered.
 |
| Britten: A Midsummer Night's Dream - Caspar Singh, Samuel Dale Johnson - Glyndebourne 2023 ( © Glyndebourne Productions Ltd. Photo: Tristram Kenton) |
Tim Mead made a physically imposing Oberon with a voice to match. Mead sang with a lovely evenness and fullness of tone throughout the range (none of the changes of gear that can happen in this notoriously low role), and phrases were always gorgeously shaped. His meditative moments, like 'I know a bank', were sung with beautiful attention to detail, but there was also an underlying strength, almost fierceness to this Oberon than underpinned his behaviour and cavalier attitude to the humans.
Liv Redpath's Tytania had a similar seriousness to her, albeit with a delightful underlying slyness to the character, and I loved Redpath's little smile of satisfaction at getting her own way. Her coloratura had a lovely lyrical richness to it, she and Mead looked and sounded a well-balanced, handsome pairing.
The four lovers, Caspar Singh, Rachael Wilson, Samuel Dale Wilson and Lauren Fagan, made a strongly characterised, finely sung and well-balanced group. Fagan's passionate Helena balanced by Wilson's strongly sung, serious Hermia, with Singh and Wilson making ardently youthful young lovers. There was nothing too nasty or too intense about these youngsters, even in the heat of the moment, and everything was always beautifully phrased.
 |
| Britten: A Midsummer Night's Dream - Patrick Guetti, Brandon Cedel, Henry Waddington, Alex Otterburn, James Way, Alasdair Elliott - Glyndebourne 2023 ( © Glyndebourne Productions Ltd. Photo: Tristram Kenton) |
Brandon Cedel was a Bottom full of self-importance and secure that his way of things was the right one. Not so much bumptious as confident, and a clear leader of the group, Cedel created a big personality but a warm one too. His was an engaging Bottom, and his interactions with Redpath's Tytania were delightful in the utter seriousness of both, neither understanding the absurdity. At the end, in the Bottom's dream passage, Cedel gave us a hint that Bottom did, after all, have a sense of what had gone one.
Henry Waddington gave Quince quite a strong presence, retiring yes, but also the guiding hand, along with the man's utter satisfaction in getting his play achieved. James Way was an engaging Flute, playing out the young man's anxieties, whilst Patrick Guetti, Alex Otterburn and Alasdair Elliott provided strongly characterised support as Snug, Starveling and Snout. Pyramus and Thisbe was given with the utmost care, the humour arising from the situation rather than any mugging from the performers, whilst both Way and Cedel responded to Britten's mock grand-opera antics in the music.
Theseus and Hippolyta are relatively small roles, but both Dingle Yandell and Rosie Aldridge brought strong personality to them.
 |
| Britten: A Midsummer Night's Dream - Fairies, Liv Redpath, Brandon Cedel - Glyndebourne 2023 ( © Glyndebourne Productions Ltd. Photo: Tristram Kenton |
Hall's production is relatively unusual in casting Puck as a child rather than a young adult; the score, I think calls for an acrobat and I am used to hearing it spoken by a broken voice rather than a lighter, unbroken one. Having a child Puck creates more of a father/son relationship with Oberon and mitigates against the homo-erotic element that lies strongly in Britten's music for the two.
Here, Oliver Barlow made a delightful Puck, knowing and mischievous, clearing enjoy his manipulations of the humans yet in awe of Mead's Oberon. Barlow gave a remarkably poised and controlled performance. Frustratingly the programme book had no biography for him, so I have no idea of his age or experience, but this was a remarkable performance from one so young, especially considering that he closed the show with such flair.
The four solo fairies, Ben Fletcher, Arlo Murray, Benjy Gilbert and Freddie Balcombe, all combined well-sung roles with a nice sense of individual personalities, notably in the scene with Cedel's Bottom. And they were supported by a fine array of fairies largely from the Trinity Boys Choir.
 |
| Britten: A Midsummer Night's Dream - Glyndebourne 2023 ( © Glyndebourne Productions Ltd. Photo: Tristram Kenton |
Stasevska and her finely balanced cast did full justice to Hall's vision for Britten's opera. The production was not only in fine health, but we had a rattlingly good evening in the theatre.
Never miss out on future posts by following us
The blog is free, but I'd be delighted if you were to show your appreciation by buying me a coffee.
Elsewhere on this blog
- Tales of Love & Enchantment: exploring the delightful songs of contemporary French composer Isabelle Aboulker at the London Song Festival - concert review
- Small but fierce: I chat to Cameron Menzies, artistic director of Northern Ireland Opera - opera review
- Ruddigore: Gilbert & Sullivan's supernatural Gothic melodrama at Opera Holland Park - opera review
- Handel's Attick: music for solo clavichord - A subtle and revelatory disc from Julian Perkins - record review
- Prom 31: Glyndebourne Opera's production of Poulenc's Carmelites, a gripping performance triumphs over unfair acoustic and theatrical compromises - opera review
- Prom 27: eclectic mix - Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini & Walton's Belshazzar's Feast - concert review
- A framework for all young musicians in Scotland: I chat to conductor Catherine Larsen-Maguire, the music director of the National Youth Orchestras of Scotland - interview
- Ian Venables' Portraits of a Mind and Vaughan Williams' On Wenlock Edge on a disc that manages to be far more than a simple tribute - record review
- About the journey not the starting point: in Transfigurations, pianist Duncan Honeybourne explores Phillip Cooke's recent works, creating little pieces of magic from base metal - record review
- Personal choice: accordion player Martynas Levickis' solo recital disc, Autograph - record review
- Rising to the challenge: a pair of world-class tenors as Turiddu and Canio anchor fine performances of Cav and Pag at West Green - opera review
- Home
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment