Joyously brilliant! Wow! The heavenly magic of Britten’s unique music, played and sung to perfection, marries so superbly with the laugh-out-loud comedy and fun of the piece and all is delivered by Opera North with such delicately warm and masterly panache. This revival of Martin Duncan’s fabulous 2013 production is this time beautifully directed by Matthew Eberhardt while it’s MD Garry Walker who conjures forth the bewitching skills of the musicians.
It was for the 1960 reopening of Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh, that Benjamin Britten (1913-76) had to come up with a brand-new opera pretty sharpish. Instead of inventing a whole new story requiring full-length, wordy libretto (and instead of panicking), he plumped for something off the peg – and off a top-class, poetic peg at that. For hanging on this peg was Shakespeare’s ever popular, soppy comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream, hardly needing alteration or adjustment at all. No, that’s not cheating, especially when extra time for music results in such a sublime score of sparkling instrumental and vocal gems.
Shakespeare’s story of magic, mayhem and mischief is ideal for opera: it takes four humans with already complicated romantic relationships and magically muddles them further with one another by crisscrossing them in new, bewildering, bickering, romantic combinations. Meanwhile, another colossal love-lust mix-up – not to mention an ass’s head – come the way of another human, namely Bottom the weaver, a simple fellow and loveable braggart. Suddenly, he and his ridiculous, furry-eared head are deeply romantically entwined with a beautiful being who’s not human at all, but is, in fact, an other-worldly being from an ethereal world – in short, a Fairy Queen, Queen Tytania. She’s currently in the middle of a stormy feud with supernatural fairy husband, King Oberon, who’s fiercely jealous of the little orphan boy she’s adopted and seeks revenge. There’s really not a lot to the plot but it’s riveting and enchanting all the way.
So, we might bathe our souls completely in the non-stop musical treasures and pleasures of the work, Johan Engels’ minimalist set offers little distraction as it conjures up perfectly this airy-fairy realm – which just happens to resemble some early, unearthly Star Trek planet, where Dr McCoy says, “It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it.” Simple curtains and strips of corrugated, transparent Perspex that drop or rise are the main element, one of which is used for the little orphan Indian boy/mannequin to beam down (and up) in turban and beads. Meanwhile a wondrous string of translucent, oblong balloons bob airily light and beautiful overhead, glimmering like spawn buoyed on water. Coloured lights delicately and beautifully infuse these areas as required with electric blue, auroras of green, pink and red or sunset yellows. All very soothing. Fairy-world props are scarce with just the occasional transparent lounger or silver, inflatable cushion raft turning up in the forest.
Flashing and dazzling in a Star Trek elegance of glittering, mirror-scaled silvers, blacks and greys come the fairy king and queen, while their large company of cloned fairies, played by copious children, is pretty creepy and sinister thanks to identical blond wigs, identical outfits of white socks, singlets and shorts and black wings, plus some unnerving clawing at the Perspex. But they do sing sweetly, and their King, Oberon, is truly stupendous. Sung in other-worldly splendour by countertenor James Laing, his strong, pleasing tones give full, meaningful expression to every word, while Daisy Brown’s shimmering Queen Tytania brings similar soprano delights.
In fact, every voice delivers generous pleasure, whether alone, or in harmonising or overlapping combinations, as with the four Athenian lovers, Helena (Camilla Harris), Lysander (Peter Kirk), Hermia (Sian Griffiths) and Demetrius (James Newby), whose acting skills and commitment to character, like those of all the cast, are totally engaging. The 1960’s Flower Power costumes, chosen by Ashley Martin-Davis, fit perfectly with the dreamy, floaty ethereal music, the lasses in bright swirls of floaty frocks, headbands and platform shoes (or in petticoats) and the lads in patterned suits (or in pants and vests).
Of course, it’s pesky, mischievous Puck aka Robin Goodfellow who chiefly gets the fairy magic into horrible twists of chaos. In red, silky shorts, actor Daniel Abelson plays this comedic, non-singing role. Bare-chested and with unsightly, hairy legs, misshapen ears, knobbly, bobbly backbone and unspritely growling, gurgling voice, he squats, crouches, scuttles and leaps, travelling often by scampering on his hands and hobbity toes, looking at times like a feral Lee Evans. His antics go down well.
Belly laughs spontaneously erupt whenever the rustics (Shakespeare’s rude mechanicals) appear. Dressed in dungarees, aprons, jeans, pullovers, caps, jackets, and a dark suit for the tailor, their fine individual singing voices also blend wonderfully as an ensemble. Their comic acting comes in joyous blend, too, as they – amidst many digressions and shenanigans – rehearse and perform their Pyramus and Thisbe play. Endearingly warm, foolish and excellent as Nick Bottom, with and without his furry-plasticky ass’s head, is the impressive Henry Waddington, while Nicholas Watts’ Flute is beautifully daft and hilarious when the dressing-up box comes out and he floats around ungainly in a yellow frock. Trying to keep order in the rag-tag group but largely failing is Dean Robinson as an amiable, convincing Peter Quince. They’re a delightful group, skillfully making the most of all comedic possibilities with great heart.
Throughout the three acts, though, it’s Britten’s music that’s the biggest, brightest star of all. Filled with variety and contrasts that are subtly done and never brash, the music conjures up and sustains broad, atmospheric soundscapes that aptly reflect the disparate moods and all the strange goings-on. Britten never over-clutters or goes overboard with volume but gives each instrument its own time and space when it alone might enchant and bewitch in innovative style. The first sounds we hear are the eerie, plaintive, creeping, streaking glissandi of strings, that set us immediately in a strange, spooky world. Frequently, courtesy of strings, harps, celesta, mellow horns, flutes, clarinets, oboes and the like, we bob dreamily on sustained waves of warm, soporific sound in an ethereal fairy world, while the world of down-to-earth workers and comical goings-on is accompanied (naturally) by some super trombone and bassoon escapades. In the tasty mix, too, are carefully placed little trumpet fanfares and contributions from, amongst others, snare drum, timpani, xylophone and Eastern gamelan-influenced chimings. With the playing of the Orchestra of Opera North and all the singing being so mind-bogglingly good, it’s sheer magic.
This dream of an opera really is uniquely special.
Eileen Caiger Gray
