A Midsummer Night’s Dream come true as Adelaide Festival starts

More than 70 events spanning music, theatre, dance, film and visual arts – as well as Writers’ Week and WOMADelaide – are scheduled for the Adelaide Festival over the next 17 days.

A Midsummer Night's Dream cast members Rachelle Durkin as Tytania, Mark Coles Smith as Puck and Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen as Oberon, at the 2021 Adelaide Festival. Picture: Andrew Beveridge

It will be A Midsummer Night’s Dream come true when the Adelaide Festival officially opens on Friday after a year threatened by pandemics and border closures.

More than 70 events spanning music, theatre, dance, film and visual arts – as well as Writers’ Week and WOMADelaide – are scheduled to be held over the next 17 days.

Festival co-director Neil Armfield, who is also directing UK composer Benjamin Britten’s opera version of Shakespeare’s Dream, was “pinching himself” that opening night had finally arrived.

“We have used the term white-water rafting, and the hope of landing in some calm water,” Armfield said.

“The announcement of the Victorian border opening up to South Australia has been huge for us.”

A Midsummer Night's Dream cast members Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen as Oberon, Mark Coles Smith as Puck and Rachelle Durkin as Tytania at Festival Theatre. Picture: Andrew Beveridge

Costume, design and makeup elements inspired by First Nations cultures are part of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which runs at the Festival Theatre until Wednesday, March 3.

“It’s such a delicate and respectful presence,” Armfield said.

WA actor and Nyikina man Mark Coles Smith will play the mischievous sprite Puck, alongside soprano Rachelle Durkin as the fairy queen Tytania and US countertenor New York Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen as Oberon.

“The idea of this playful spirit at the heart of this work, embodied in the person of Mark Coles Smith as Puck, is just so subtle,” Mr Armfield said.

“There one point early on where he stretches his arms, runs around the stage and gives us his kookaburra – you can feel the audience going ‘Ahh, that’s where we are’.”

New York based Cohen, who spent two weeks in quarantine at the Playford Hotel last month, said there was “something very special” about this opening night.

“This is my first time performing in front of an audience in over a year,” he said.

“So getting to perform with this fantastic cast, getting to present a work as brilliant as Midsummer, and getting to do so as a part of this renowned Adelaide Festival is a true ‘pinch me’ moment.”

The opera also features 20 child performers from Young Adelaide Voices.

“The energy of those young kids is what’s so beautiful in the opera … they have been so inspiring to us across the last few months,” Armfield said.

The Festival had a surge in ticket sales on Wednesday and Thursday, although it was unable to say how many were bought interstate.

Meanwhile the Adelaide Fringe, which continues until March 21, has already sold more than 220,000 tickets. To date, only 1100 Fringe tickets had been bought by people with Victorians postcodes.

However, the Fringe had also experienced an increase in inquiries since the lifting of border restrictions and was expecting a jump in interstate sales.

Mr Armfield said that the few international artists the Festival was able to include in its program had expressed their joy at being able to perform here, while most of the live entertainment world remained in lockdown.

“They’ve said Adelaide Festival is like this beacon of hope for them.”