A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

BRITTEN aMidsummer Night's Dream

July 2 7:30 PM July 10 2:00 PM July 15 7:30 PM July 23 7:30 PM

Music by BENJAMIN BRITTEN Libretto by BENJAMIN BRITTEN and PETER PEARS, after the play by Shakespeare

First Performance: Aldeburgh Festival; June 11, 1960 Previous performances at Des Moines Metro Opera: 1979, 2007 Performed in English with English supertitles By arrangement with Boosey & Hawkes, Inc., publisher and copyright owner.

A new production made possible by a production gift from Frank R. Brownell III Costume design made possible by a gift from Ellen and Jim Hubbell

THE STORY The Wood

BEFORE THE OPERA BEGINS

The marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta is to take place at the next new moon. A group of rustics is anxious to entertain the royal couple and plan a meeting in the woods to choose a play.

Just at this time, Theseus is called upon by Egeus, a prominent citizen, to invoke the old law which will force his daughter Hermia to marry Demetrius, the man of her father's choice. If she chooses not to marry him, she must accept a sentence of death or life in a convent. Theseus upholds the law and Hermia and her lover Lysander arrange in desperation to meet in the woods to decide on their fate. They make the mistake of confiding in Helena, Hermia's friend, who is so in love with Demetrius that she tells him of the lovers' flight to the woods. He follows them, pursued by Helena.

ACT I: Deepening twilight

The wood is filled with fairies who have come to wish joy and prosperity to Theseus and Hippolyta. But they are disturbed by a quarrel over the custody of a young boy whom the Queen Tytania refuses to relinquish to her husband, King Oberon. Oberon decides to punish her and sends Puck on a hasty search for a magic flower that had been pricked by Cupid's arrow. Hermia and Lysander wish to marry but have run away to escape her father's order that she must marry Demetrius. The latter is pursued by Helena, whom he does not love. Oberon, perceiving Demetrius' scorn for Helena, instructs Puck to use the magic flower to force Demetrius to reciprocate Helena's love. Six rustics meet to prepare a play that they hope to perform in honor of Theseus and Hippolyta's wedding. Quince, a carpenter, plans the entertainment with much help from Bottom, a weaver. Through Puck's error, Lysander, sleeping on the ground near Hermia, is anointed. He awakens to see Helena still in pursuit of Demetrius and follows her into the wood. Oberon squeezes the juice of the magic flower into the sleeping Tytania’s eyes: when she awakes she will fall in love with the first creature that she sees.

INTERMISSION

ACT II: Dark night

The Rustics meet to rehearse. The knavish Puck gleefully slips an ass' head upon Bottom's shoulders. The rest of the company flees in terror at the sight. Tytania wakes up, falls madly in love with the absurd monster, adorns his head with roses, orders her fairies to wait upon him, and falls asleep in his arms. Exhausted, Demetrius lies down to sleep, and Oberon, having learned of Puck's mistake, sends his messenger to fetch Helena while he drops the love-potion into Demetrius' eyes. As Helena arrives, quarreling with Lysander, their voices awaken Demetrius who promptly falls in love with Helena. The confusion deepens and bitter words are exchanged on all sides, with the young men rushing out to fight a duel. Puck soon sets things straight by causing the four to fall asleep and removing the spell from Lysander's eyes with the juice of another flower.

INTERMISSION

ACT III: Early next morning

Oberon, now in possession of the disputed boy, cures Tytania's enchantment and orders Puck to release the ass' head as Bottom wakes, stretches and assumes the evening's events to be part of a dream. At the break of day Theseus, Hippolyta and their train come to the wood to hunt and enjoy their wedding festivities. Their horns awaken the lovers who find themselves happily paired at last. When the Duke learns that Demetrius, now in love with Helena, willingly gives up Hermia to Lysander, he is so pleased that he invites the lovers to be married in the same ceremony with himself and Hippolyta. The rustics’ play is chosen to be performed. When midnight strikes, Theseus declares that it is time for bed. Oberon, Tytania, the fairies and Puck appear and give their blessing.

PRODUCTION

Conductor ELIZABETH ASKREN * Stage Director CHAS RADER-SHIEBER Scenic and Costume Design JACOB A. CLIMER Lighting Design CONNIE YUN * Make-Up/Hair Design BRITTANY V.A. RAPPISE * Youth Chorus Director ALLEN PERRIELLO Associate Conductor WILLIAM HOBBS Musical Preparation ELDEN LITTLE Assistant Stage Director ISAAC LERNER Youth Chorus Pianist TAYLOR BURKHARDT * Stage Manager MEG EDWARDS Millinery ELIZABETH FLAUTO Costume Makers COLIN DAVIS JONES STUDIOS JEFFREY WALLACH/THE COSTUME SHOP AT NEW YORK THEATRE WORKSHOP FRITZ MASTEN

* DMMO mainstage debut † Former DMMO Apprentice Artist ‡ Current DMMO Apprentice Artist or Ensemble Artist

CAST in order of vocal appearance Cobweb EMMA ROTHFIELD ‡ Mustardseed NAOMI BRIGELL ‡ Peaseblossom VÉRONIQUE FILLOUX ‡ Moth MIYA HIGASHIYAMA *‡ Puck LIAM BECK-O’SULLIVAN * Oberon JOHN HOLIDAY Tytania SYDNEY MANCASOLA Lysander ISAIAH BELL * Hermia TAMARA GURA * Demetrius ALEXANDER BIRCH ELLIOTT † Helena SUSANNE BURGESS † Peter Quince MATT BOEHLER † Snug the Joiner WEI WU * Robin Starveling MICHAEL PANDOLFO *‡ Francis Flute MICHAEL KUHN * Tom Snout COREY TRAHAN † Nick Bottom BARNABY REA * Theseus ALAN WILLIAMS *‡ Hippolyta SYDNEY FRODSHAM *‡ Youth Chorus BENJAMIN BJORKLUND MICAH BROERS * HATTIE GREEN * CALLEN KLEENE * ALEX MILLER * LUCY MILLER * EVAN MOYER * XAVIER MUIR *

DIRECTOR'S NOTES by Chas Rader-Shieber, Stage Director

What is magic? Shakespeare (and Britten for that matter) has offered a world in which fairies and mortals co-exist. All of the characters in A Midsummer Night’s Dream meet in the woods, the domain of the fairy world, and in one way or another, they all experience the idea of magic. In one instance, magic is a spell to make someone fall in love with the next person she sees. In another, magic is a man transformed into a donkey by a jealous Oberon.

But magic doesn’t just belong to the fairies who inhabit the forest at night. It is the magic that we see every day but don’t often value, that is of equal importance in this opera. When the construction worker decides to leave the city to join his friends and express himself artistically—that is magic. When the teenager learns the difference between a crush and true love—that is magic. These moments, as well as the supernatural ones, are filled with a feeling of wonder that might be overlooked but for how sweetly and smartly they are offered to us in this astonishing work.

Britten is at his very best here, creating not so much what the forest at night sounds like, but what it also “feels” like. Along with his partner Peter Pears, Britten has adapted, trimmed and refined Shakespeare’s play to amazing effect. He guides us through three interconnected stories, weaving them towards a conclusion filled with joy and laughter and a certain kind of poignant maturity. Every character is afforded the opportunity to grow and change and become more themselves that ever before—and that, too, is a kind of magic.

JOHN HOLIDAY

SYDNEY MANCASOLA

BARNABY REA

LIAM BECK-O’SULLIVAN

ISAIAH BELL

ALEXANDER BIRCH ELLIOTT

TAMARA GURA

SUSANNE BURGESS

MICHAEL KUHN

britten’s magical midsummer How Midsummer’s appeal lies in the fantastic and the mundane

BY GENEVIEVE LANG

THE MAGIC OF BENJAMIN BRITTEN’S early life is that music found him at all. He came from a self-described “very ordinary middleclass family.” None of his three siblings showed any inclination towards music; neither of his parents were musical; and music was not taught at school. But by age six, in the British fishing port of Lowestoft in Suffolk, Britten was writing incidental music for self-devised plays and “publishing” these works, complete with clear and precise descriptions of each character’s costumes. With his theatrical bent emerging so young, Britten would go on to be England’s greatest composer of opera.

Britten’s early musical path put him on course to meet with composer, violist and conductor Frank Bridge, 34 years his senior. Bridge took Britten on as his only student. His teaching style was unconventional: focusing on aesthetics, idiomatic writing, and clarity. Britten credited Bridge with impressing on him the importance of scrupulous attention to technical craft and the maxim that “you should find yourself and be true to what you find.” The former meant that Britten was often able to compose at great speed—A Midsummer Night’s Dream was turned out in just six months; the piece he wrote in tribute to his teacher, the Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, in a mere three. As to idiomatic writing, you need only consult with any harpist or viola player to discover how brilliantly “from-the-inside-out” Britten was able to compose for every single instrument.

It's rare for Britten and Wagner to appear in the same sentence—differences abound in musical language, temperament, scale and conception of major works, and reputation. Yet there is one notable similarity: the sense that a composer must have, if not complete control, then at least a very heavy hand in both the musical and literary creation of an opera. Britten was once offered an unsolicited libretto, which he politely declined, explaining that he was very sorry but he couldn’t accept it because he hadn’t been in on it since the beginning. “This is a long business,” he explained. “The idea for an opera must come from the composer.”

Which begs the question, why decide to “work with” Shakespeare? Well, not too long before the 1960 Aldeburgh Festival, Britten and Peter Pears—his life partner, singer and fellow creative—realized that there was no jewel in the crown of that year’s festival. They could be forgiven for having been distracted with the renovations to the Jubilee Hall, the festival’s major

Costume designs by Jacob A. Climer.

venue. Thoughts of his soon-to-be-composed War Requiem were also likely turning in Britten’s mind, drawing attention away from the minutiae of festival planning. In any case, rather than starting 100% from scratch, Britten and Pears turned to the great Bard and took an editor’s pen to cut large swaths of Shakespeare’s text, doing away with the entire first act, and reducing the text to half its original size. Britten commented that had they kept all of Shakespeare’s text, the opera would have rivalled Wagner’s Ring Cycle in length. Makes sense when you consider the speed of delivery from spoken dialogue, versus the time it takes to bend and shape prose into beautiful phrase upon beautiful musical phrase.

“One of the greatest gifts a composer can offer a director,” says DMMO director Chas Rader-Shieber, “is once they’ve confronted and absorbed the source material, to make sure the action always moves forward. I love the way Britten sends this thing forward among the three groups. And he’s also written in beautiful moments of repose—there’s a spectacular piece of music when Tytania and Bottom fall asleep with one another. It’s my job,” says Chas, “not to let down a great composer.”

Whether this is your first Britten opera or your 23rd Midsummer, key to your enjoyment, says Chas, is your ability to let the first 15 minutes just wash over you. “The first half-hour of a James Bond film can be just as confusing, just as complicated, but we know not to worry because that’s how those movies run.” There’s a strong argument with Britten, as with Handel, for not including a synopsis in the printed program. “We can get overwhelmed by the complexity of the plot.” [Spoiler alert: they all live happily ever after.]

Similarly, the musical language of Britten can be a bit of an exercise to grasp. Here’s a Britten hack: for each group of characters in the opera, he created a unique sound world: celesta, harp and high woodwind for the fairies, lower brass for the “Mechanicals” (the theatrical group) and more conventional orchestral scoring for the lovers. The music of the opening immediately establishes a sense of otherworldliness in the forest where most of the opera is set: a series of sliding chromatic chords, which have the rhythm of a sleeper’s breathing. These chords are discordant when placed alongside each other, but as discrete units, are simple triads—three notes piled up on top of each other, a foundational structure in music. Britten builds a world that is both “natural” (triads) and “unnatural” (dischords and chromaticism), a place where normal rules do not apply.

“Normal rules” similarly don’t apply to the leading role of Oberon. Britten broke new ground in the 20th century by casting the King of the Fairies as a countertenor. Britten had long admired the music of the last great English composer of opera—Henry Purcell. Around the time Britten was conceiving Midsummer, there was a man called Deller who was singing a lot of Purcell in an authentic style and repopularising the male “alto” voice along the way. Alfred Deller’s countertenor voice was very high and uniquely expressionless, which lent it exactly the otherworldly quality that Britten was searching for. He wrote to Deller inviting him to sing Oberon: “I see you and hear your voice very clearly in this part…”

In 1960 Deller was something of a curiosity. Though he was the father of three children and sported a beard, he still had to endure insinuations about his virility. There’s a delightful story of a Frenchwoman (or German) inquiring, “Monsieur, you are eunuch?” To which Deller replied, “I’m sure you mean unique, Madame.” Incidentally, Deller wasn’t sure he was up to the part, as he was somewhat lacking in stagecraft. Britten reassured him: “Your height and presence will be absolutely right—and so will your beard!” (DMMO is delighted to be presenting genre-bending countertenor John Holiday—and his beard!—in this production.)

By cutting the entire first act of Shakespeare’s play, Britten launches us into Oberon’s world of the fairies. The sprites look magical, dressed in Elizabethan-inspired translucent gauze, and they behave magically—for one thing, the grass in the forest glade doesn’t stain their near-white fairy finery! Designer Jacob A. Climer also introduces the most wondrous of creatures, fireflies, as companions for the fairies. The spell is cast.

“The real magic,” says Chas, “is in childhood. And growing up. Being a hormonal teenager is magic. It’s a miracle I got through my teenage years.” And lo! This is Puck’s tale. The Mechanicals, in their comic, hapless, hopeless ways, also carry magic within. “Being a day laborer frowned upon by the whole of society, with a bunch of beer drinking buddies, who also wants to make a play? Or paint a painting? These guys’ wives will never understand that they’re actually going into the forest to express themselves. This is where magic and reality can co-exist.”

What place does A Midsummer Night’s Dream hold in this DMMO season? Sitting in triumvirate with The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess—a story of Shakespearean proportions but told in the American vernacular—and our brandnew work A Thousand Acres by Kristin Kuster and Mark Campbell, a modern retelling of King Lear, Britten’s gentle comedy is perhaps the most “foreign” of the three. But there are universal themes to be explored here, and the music adds another layer through which they can be understood: What is magic? What is fantastic? What is otherworldly? The fairies comprise only one third of the cast—human existence is magical too. It has things in it that are just hard to explain. Like the act of growing up. Tragically, meaningfully, you can’t go back.

Ultimately, leaving aside all the hard work, the analysis, the blood, sweat, rehearsal masks, foggy spectacles, and tears of getting the show to the stage, A Midsummer Night’s Dream invites you in for a great night out. “Communal entertainment reminds us that we’re with other people, witnessing that shared “something” that comes with live theatre. And thank goodness we’re not still at home rewatching yet another comic’s Netflix special.” We’ve been asked so many times over the last two years to believe the unbelievable. Entering an opera theatre—or any theatre, for that matter—asks us to do the same again. With almost Puck-like sincerity, Jacob is taking responsibility: “We have to make sure our audiences feel safe enough in a theatre to suspend disbelief.”

Genevieve Lang was first captivated by opera when, as a nine-year-old girl, she was taken by her father to see Bizet’s Carmen at the Sydney Opera House. For many years she performed as harpist with Australia’s major orchestras, and more recently she’s added writing and broadcasting to her skillset. Nowadays, Genevieve shares her passion for music on ABC Classic, Australia’s national classical music station, where she’s part of the regular presenter lineup.

BRITTEN and DMMO

The relationship between DMMO and Benjamin Britten’s operas stretches all the way back to the company’s opening season. Some 13 years earlier, founder Robert L. Larsen was in the audience to witness Britten conduct A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Holland Festival, soon after its premiere in Britten’s hometown of Aldeburgh. Larsen taught that there were four “Bs” of serious music— Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and Britten. He very much believed in Britten and his music, so much so that Albert Herring was part of the very first DMMO season in 1973. We now proudly count seven of Britten’s operas in our repertory. A Midsummer Night’s Dream was first mounted in 1979 and also helped celebrate our 35th season and joins the festivities for our half-century.

The company’s first performance of Midsummer, pictured left, was unforgettable, in part because it was the first production to be broadcast by Iowa PBS. But magical forces were in play. Just after the first act had concluded a massive storm knocked out power to the theatre, mid-broadcast, and with a live audience in situ! Jennifer Ringo, who was singing Tytania that evening, recalls that she and Rinde Eckert, who sang the role of Snout, under emergency lighting and in sweltering heat, “entertained the audience for hours with folk songs, guitar, juggling, and any talent we could muster to keep them from leaving!” Happily, it worked. The audience stayed, the recording was captured, and everyone went home tired and happy at 2am.

From that 1979 season, the mischievous Puck—a character viewed by Britten as “absolutely amoral and yet innocent”—climbed out of the memorable production and onto the top of DMMO’s logo, where he remained, faithfully watchful and with a twinkle in his youthful eye, until 2015.