Oh yeah baby! Here we go!
I think this is the first opera to include a role written specifically for a countertenor. Certainly the first well-known one. The wikipedia list of "notable countertenor roles" jumps straight from Handel to Britten (though if we're including castrato roles as "countertenor," you'd think Sesto in La Clemenzia di Tito would've gotten a mention). Very forward-thinking of him, I must say.
More than that, though, I think this probably has roles designated for more different voice types than any other opera I've seen: countertenor (Oberon), tenor (Lysander, Flute, Snout), baritone (Demetrius, Starveling), bass-baritone (Bottom), bass (Theseus, Quince, Snug), coloratura soprano (Tytania), soprano (Helena), mezzo-soprano (Hermia), contralto (Hippolyta), treble (Cobweb, Peaseblossom, Moth, Mustardseed), and "spoken role" (Puck). Yes, self-evidently, some of these are very fine distinctions that can easily slide into one another (and is a "coloratura soprano" really that different from a regular one?), but it's still pretty cool. I think.
Yeah, A Midsummer Night's Dream. As a young thespian, I played both Oberon and Bottom in school plays (not to brag or nothin'!), so I know the play pretty well, and the opera follows it very closely. I thought it might be difficult or unwieldy to try to fit all three intersecting plotlines--faerie politics, love quadrangle, mechanicals--into one opera, but it actually is very adroitly done: I think the only scene from the play that's omitted is the opening in Theseus' court. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure one hundred percent of the dialogue is from Shakespeare, which is very impressive to me. One thing that did stand out to me that I never really paid much attention to is that boy, Tytania (not sure why it's spelled with a 'y') gets a raw deal: she's humiliated and Oberon takes her changeling child and that's it. If I were going to rewrite the story, I'd like to give her more agency. But that's just me.
The music is Britten, for sure: nothing really unexpected, perhaps a little more restrained than some of his previous work, but lots of very ethereal "faerieland" music with more earthy tones for the mechanicals. I have to admit, I was never quite as struck by any individual scene as I have been in some of his earlier operas--this may be in part just from excessive familiarity with the story--but the whole viewing experience was extremely pleasant. Some good farcical energy built up by the lovers' quarrels in addition to the surefire "Pyramus and Thisbe" climax.
I watched this version, mainly because I wanted to see the now-disgraced David Daniels (just fired from his tenured university position--I guess that's the last vestige of his career gone) as Oberon--the man may be morally beyond the pale, but he sure could sing. It's a very elegant production by Robert Carsen. The conceit is that the forest where the whole opera except the final palace scene is set is a giant bed, with pillows and sheets and blankets, everything dominated by blue and green. Beyond this, it's very minimalistic, but it succeed in creating the desired uncanny tone. I was unfamiliar with the cast beyond Daniels, but I liked them all, notably Peter Rose as a very funny Bottom; and Henry Waddington, very endearing as Quince.
Anyway, good stuff. Now I want to see Purcell's Fairy Queen (based on Shakespeare, not Spencer), for comparison's sake. Actually, I wanted to see it anyway. Oh well. All things in good time, if we're not all murdered by viruses.
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