A Mid­­sum­mer Nigh­t's Dream

"Frills that have little more substance than a dream." This is how the actor who plays Puck describes "Midsummer Night's Dream" in his concluding speech, while also raising the question of who actually dreamed it? Shakespeare probably shows that the theater is a place of dreams in no other play as clearly as in his popular "Dream." The composer Benjamin Britten, who has repeatedly dealt with the subconscious, the repressed and the taboo in his operas, also concentrated entirely on the dark side of humanity in this chamber opera: Spherical string sounds lead directly into the world of the elves, which is given a musical color of its own with a coloratura soprano, a countertenor and children's voices. Not only two young couples from the Athenian upper class find their way into this midsummer, sultry natural kingdom, ruled by the fairy kings Oberon and Tytania, but also six craftsmen who are to rehearse a deeply tragic comedy of "Pyramus and Thisbe" for the wedding of the ruling couple Theseus and Hippolyta. Members of the International Opera Studio, together with the Musikkollegium Winterthur, are now bringing the work, which premiered in 1960 in Britten's birthplace Aldeburgh, to our stage.