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Theater an der Wien

Manacorda / Britten "A Midsummer Night's Dream"

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Info
Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears used Shakespeare’s famous text almost verbatim, the composer creating a score of suitably magical potency, and this fairy-tale opera became one of his most successful works. The allocation of the voices is unusual: Oberon is a countertenor, Titania a coloratura soprano — the king and queen of the fairies move in the very highest dimensions. Britten found a characteristic musical language for each of the magical and human spheres. Furthermore, in his composition he is always mindful of his famous predecessors who had written music for Shakespeare’s comedy: Henry Purcell, Carl Maria von Weber and Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. There is also a kind of history of opera hidden in the score. This comes to the fore in highly amusing fashion with the artisans’ performance in Act III: Britten presents Pyramus and Thisbe as a parody of Italian opera.

Performers

Antonello Manacorda 
conductor 
Damiano Michieletto 
staging 
Bejun Mehta 
countertenor 
 (Oberon )
Daniela Fally 
soprano 
 (Tytania )
Maresi Riegner 
 
 (Puck )
Güneş Gürle 
bass 
 (Theseus )
Ann-Beth Solvang 
mezzo-soprano 
 (Hippolyta )
Rupert Charlesworth 
tenor 
 (Lysander )
Tobias Greenhalgh 
baritone 
 (Demetrius )
Natalia Kawałek 
mezzo-soprano 
 (Hermia )
Mirella Hagen 
soprano 
 (Helena )
Tareq Nazmi 
bass-baritone 
 (Nick Bottom )
Lukas Jakobski 
bass 
 (Peter Quince )
Michael Laurenz 
tenor 
 (Francis Flute )
Dumitru Mădăraşăn 
bass 
 (Snug )
Andrew Owens 
tenor 
 (Tom Snout )
Kristján Jóhannesson 
baritone 
 (Robin Starveling )
St. Florianer Sängerknaben
children's choir 
Wiener Symphoniker
orchestra 

Programme

Benjamin Britten
"A Midsummer Night's Dream", Opera in three acts op. 64
"A Midsummer Night's Dream", Opera in three acts op. 64
1960
144min

Location

Group

Theater an der Wien