Real Tenderness
MIKE WHEELER experiences Opera North's touring production of Britten's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'
Revivals of three well-loved productions made up Opera North's latest tour, beginning with Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream - Theatre Royal, Nottingham, UK, 20 November 2024.
In Martin Duncan's production - directed for this revival by Matthew Eberhardt - with set designs by Johan Engels, the wood near Athens was a silvery-grey world of semi-transparent screens, and balloon-clouds hovering over the action.
Daisy Brown as Tytania with the children of A Midsummer Night's Dream cast as Fairies in Opera North’s production of Benjamin Britten's opera.
Photo © 2024 Richard H Smith
Ashley Martin-Davis's costume designs clearly differentiated between the three worlds - Oberon's and Tytania's glittering outfits echoing the set; the lovers, initially in hippyish bright colours; the rustics in workaday browns and neutral tones. Bruno Poet's lighting brought vivid reds and greens into the mix as the various enchantments took hold.
From left to right: James Newby as Demetrius, Peter Kirk as Lysander, Siân Griffiths as Hermia and Camilla Harris as Helena in Opera North's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Photo © 2024 Richard H Smith
Mysterious shapes appeared behind the front-of-stage screen, which lifted to reveal the fairies – mainly boys and girls from Opera North's youth ensembles, as General Director Laura Canning told us in the programme. In white tee-shirts and shorts, and identical blonde wigs, they were, while not exactly unnerving, certainly no troupe of fluffy Tinkerbells either.
James Laing returned to the role of Oberon that he played when this production was new in 2008. His big Purcellian aria 'I know a bank' was a moment of uncanny stillness.
James Laing as Oberon and Daisy Brown as Tytania in Opera North's production of Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Photo © 2024 Richard H Smith
Daisy Brown's Tytania matched him for imperiousness to begin with, shedding her regal persona to become positively flirty in her scene with the ass-headed Bottom in Act II.
Henry Waddington as Nick Bottom and Daisy Brown as Tytania with the children of A Midsummer Night's Dream cast as Fairies in Opera North's production of Britten's opera. Photo © 2024 Richard H Smith
Daniel Abelson's down-and-dirty, gravel-voiced Puck - more Caliban than Ariel, perhaps - hinted at an emotional dependency on Oberon.
Daniel Abelson as Puck in Opera North's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Photo © 2024 Richard H Smith
The two pairs of lovers combined individual characterisation with a sense of a cohesive foursome which held good even while letting fly in their Act II quarrel. In the vocal warmth Siân Griffiths and Peter Kirk brought to the roles of Hermia and Lysander, they seemed secure in their relationship, until Puck's disastrous intervention, that is. Griffiths suggested real panic in Hermia's awakening from her first sleep to find Lysander gone. Camilla Harris' breathless first entrance as a lovelorn Helena showed her hopelessly in thrall to James Newby's stern Demetrius. As all four gradually awoke in Act III - in both play and opera, waking from their various dreams, for all the enchanted characters, is as important as going into them - there was real tenderness in their new sense of self-discovery.
From left to right: Peter Kirk as Lysander, Siân Griffiths as Hermia, Camilla Harris as Helena and James Newby as Demetrius in Opera North's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Photo © 2024 Richard H Smith
The rustics were not just a collection of bumbling am-dram caricatures, and the operatic and theatrical parodies animating their 'Pyramus and Thisbe' play all found their mark. Henry Waddington, another returner from this production's first outing, made Bottom the weaver just enough of a prima donna, wanting to play all the parts and rewrite the script, lapping up his scene with Tytania and being waited on by the fairies, while not being entirely sure what was going on, then pulling his wits slowly together as he wakes up in Act III. Nicholas Watts' diffident Flute rose magnificently to his show-stopping Donizetti parody in the rustics' play. Colin Judson's Snout stoically played the role of Wall; Nicholas Butterfield's fastidious Starveling was a statuesque Moon, and Frazer Scott's Snug roared magnificently as the Lion. Dean Robinson's good-natured but often exasperated Peter Quince had his work cut out trying to keep order and get the show on the road.
From left to right: Nicholas Butterfield as Robin Starveling, Frazer Scott as Snug, Nicholas Watts as Francis Flute, Henry Waddington as Nick Bottom, Colin Judson as Tom Snout and Dean Robinson as Peter Quince in Opera North’s production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Photo © 2024 Richard H Smith
As Theseus and Hippolyta, Andri Björn Róbertsson and Molly Barker presided genially over the Act III celebrations.
Molly Barker as Hippolyta and Andri Björn Róbertsson as Theseus in Opera North's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Photo © 2024 Richard H Smith
Opera North's Music Director Garry Walker and the Opera North Orchestra made Britten's unfailingly apt instrumental writing shimmer. And as Oberon, Tytania and the other fairies invoked their blessing on the three newly-wedded couples, and Puck appealed for the audience's indulgence, it was impossible to suppress a big smile.
Copyright © 28 November 2024
Mike Wheeler,
Derby UK
