I recently saw my third Britten opera. A Midsummer Night's Dream was playing at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, and as it coincided with a family visit, we all decided we would attend. I have to say, I thought I didn't like it, but in the end, I enjoyed it.
Premiered in 1960 at the Aldeburgh Festival, this opera is a masterclass in atmospheric delineation. Britten and Peter Pears (tenor singer, and Britten's partner) adapted Shakespeare’s text directly, focusing on the intersection of three distinct worlds: the supernatural, the aristocratic, and the mundane. The setting is an eerie, nocturnal forest near Athens that feels more like a psychological liminal space than a literal woods. Key themes include the instability of reality, the "madness" of love, and the transformative power of sleep. And musically, the opera is famous for its tripartite orchestration, where each group of characters is confined to a specific "sound world" of instruments.
The opera begins not with a traditional overture, but with sliding string glissandi representing the forest’s "breath". We meet the fairy King Oberon and Queen Tytania, who are feuding over a changeling boy. Oberon instructs the mischievous Puck to find a magical flower whose juice causes one to fall in love with the first creature they see. Meanwhile, two pairs of Athenian lovers (Hermia/Lysander and Helena/Demetrius) wander into the woods, followed by a group of "Rustics" (tradesmen) rehearsing a play. In Act II, the forest becomes a site of chaos. Puck accidentally applies the juice to the wrong lovers, leading to a comic-yet-vicious quartet of jealousy. In a move of calculated cruelty, Oberon applies the juice to the sleeping Tytania, who wakes to fall in love with Bottom the Weaver, whom Puck has transformed into a donkey. The act closes with a mesmerizing lullaby built on four "magic chords". In Act III, as dawn breaks, Oberon releases the spells. The lovers awaken, their relationships "corrected," though they remain haunted by the night's events. The action moves to the court of Theseus in Athens, where the Rustics perform their unintentionally hilarious play, Pyramus and Thisbe. The opera ends with the fairies reclaiming the stage to bless the house in a haunting, ethereal chorus.
For me, the most compelling aspect here is Britten’s use of timbre as a structural device: different characters have different musical timbres assigned to them. The fairies are accompanied by "ethereal" textures: harps, celesta, harpsichord, and percussion. Oberon was written for a countertenor (originally Alfred Deller), a radical choice in 1960 that creates a non-human, otherworldly vocal presence. The human lovers on the other hand were scored for strings and woodwinds, representing a more "conventional" operatic passion, though often destabilized by shifting meters. The Rustics were characterized by "low and bumpy" sounds—bassoons, lower brass, and trombones, which often parodically mimicking 19th-century Italian opera. And finally, there was the so-called "Sleep" Chords, where Britten utilized a twelve-tone sequence for the four chords that represent the forest's magic. However, unlike the Second Viennese School, these chords were lush, resonant pillars, bridging the gap between serialism and tonality.
The production in the Deutsche Oper Berlin was directed by Ted Huffman, which delivered a minimalistic aesthetic. I found it fascinating that the setting was moved temporally, instead of a medieval Athens, it was a rather early 20th-century Edwardian fashion aesthetic. And yes, I was impressed by the acrobatic Puck. And of course, it is a comedy after all, so yes, at some point, especially in Act III, we were all laughing at the funny antics that were happening on stage.
Overall, I loved this opera. It was not dark, in comparison to the other two Britten operas that I have seen in the past, which I have to say, is a refreshing change.
