Benjamin Britten’s musical fantasy, A Midsummer’s Dream, is a lunar fairytale set almost entirely in the deepest, darkest woods of Shakespearean folklore. There be monsters: sylvan succubae, will-o’-the-wisp, and the bloodied ghost of Red Riding Hood flit skittishly in the gloaming. The great-god/green man Pan, holds sway; and civilisation’s taboos vaporise long-before twilit bracken and fairy rings envelop the forest’s edge. The work’s plangent discordance and preternatural cadence hint of the maelstrom at the heart of misrule: a truly pagan discombobulation affects the senses. The opera’s Director (and General Director of ETO) interprets the theme in terms of ‘desire and anxiety’: part summer romance, part fertility ritual. Such unsettling synergy is deftly conjured in this accomplished touring production opening at Sadler’s Wells.
      The erection of Aldeburgh’s enlarged Jubilee Hall in 1960 was commemorated by the composition. Completed in seven months by Britten (with his partner, the tenor Peter Pears, collaborating on the libretto) its debut was apparently spell-binding in the words of one awe-struck review. Critics were less kind about the exposition: drawn directly from the play’s text, by necessity it had to be halved in length and its lines occasionally reapportioned.
      The stage barely changes throughout, as by agreement with Pears, the locus of Britten’s re-telling is the pagan netherworld of Oberon and Tytania. A twisted, toppled tree-trunk bisects the mossy, flower-strewn, bank and bower of the faery queen’s lair. Let us not be mistaken, this is no bucolic, Boucher-sugared caprice; for the crepuscular set (fitfully illuminated by tiny, mauve fronds of eco-lighting) is suffused with faint and shadowy malevolence.
      The downside to this atmospheric display is that one occasionally longs for a little more light on the subjects. Costumes seem to reference Blackadder by way of the Puritans – in a good way, as far as I could tell. A sinister Puck dons what appears to be a straight-jacket, or left-over bindings from the black-and-white version of The Mummy Returns. The lightest relief, in the shape of the tufty, baby-bird fairy chorus, looked quite adorable. Each destination on the production’s tour sources local pupils for these roles, and very sweet the Childs Hill Primary School Barnet looked at the London premiere too.
      Michael Rosewell conducts with delicacy; and when the cast take the trouble to sing intelligibly, they are exemplary - with my vote going to Hermia and Demetrius (Niamh Kelly and Robert Davies) from the Athenian court; Jonathan Peter Kenny’s Oberon rules the little people, and in the person of Bottom, Player Andrew Slater gets to grips with his inner ass. Kenny calls to mind an evil Marc Almond, who I felt might break into a rather apposite rendition of Tainted Love at any moment. On a serious note, the lovers’ quartet in Act II is perfectly judged.
      The rustic interludes of the original Midsummer Night’s Dream were always my least favourite. Britten’s work benefits from a bit of light, affectionate slapstick (Slater’s Bottom and company of yokels gauge the brevity well) for it counterpoints the deeper chaos at the opera’s heart. As Robin Goodfellow knows only too well: all work and no play are too dull for words…
Caroline Kellett Fraysse