A Midsummer Night’s Dream | Adelaide Festival 2021 review
It’s the Shakespeare you know, set in a translucent green glade, where confident Young Adelaide Voices are the first of many joys.
Adelaide Festival
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A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Opera US/AUS
FESTIVAL
Festival Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre
Until March 3
Benjamin Britten’s audacious A Midsummer Night’s Dream delivers on all its promises in this superbly cast opera, finally reaching Adelaide 12 years after Neil Armfield first created it.
It’s the Shakespeare you know: Four confused and confusing lovers run into the woods, in this case a translucent green glade. A band of working men rehearse a play. All social classes are caught in the conflict between the King and Queen of Faery.
Paul Kildea raises his wand, sorry, baton and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra begins the magic.
Fairies, the frequently very Young Adelaide Voices, nurtured by Christie Anderson, run on to the stage. Their musical and dramatic confidence are the first of the many joys of this production.
Rachelle Durkin’s lustrous coloratura is commanding as Tytania and Oberon, airborne, is the American countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen. Androgynous and other worldly, he delivers the vocal enchantment Britten demands.
Mark Coles Smith brings earthy energy to Puck, Oberon’s fixer.
The four young lovers caught up in Oberon’s revenge, Sally Anne Russell, Leanne Kenneally, James Clayton and Andrew Goodwin (the Nadir in 2018’s Pearl Fishers) are totally convincing musically and dramatically. That’s a keynote to the success of the night.
Warwick Fyfe’s weaver Bottom, the butt of Oberon’s cruelty, is neither as padded or vulgar as some would make him, self-important certainly but beautifully communicated.
The first act is love’s labour lost, the second is love’s labours certainly won, with two of the composer’s greatest moments, the play within the play and the finale.
But first, enter Theseus and Hippolyta, Teddy Tahu Rhodes and Fiona Campbell. Rhodes is suitably commanding, vocally and physically. It’s luxury casting.
The rude mechanicals are led by Douglas McNicol, every amateur theatre director, Fyfe is Pyramus, but Louis Hurley’s Thisby, a send up of Lucia Di Lammermoor, complete with deranged flute obbligato, steals the show.
Pelham Andrews is a perfectly cowardly Lion, Norbert Hohl a sturdy wall, and Jeremy Tatchell is the moon. His well-behaved dog is Lock Armfield.
The last minutes have Oberon and Tytania, and their fairy band, blessing lovers, bride beds and houses, including the Festival Centre and a masked and loving audience.
A wise man once advised against sharing the stage with children and animals. They certainly got the audience’s love but the grown ups did pretty well too, and earned their ovation.
Armfield notes that the first production in Houston in 2009 reflected the hope of the Obama presidency. This production takes place within the first hundred days of the Biden administration. All’s well that ends well?
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