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© Bettina Stöß
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
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 February 2027 | ||||||
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Opera in three acts
Libretto by Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears after William Shakespeare's Comedy
First performed on 11 June, 1960 at the Aldeburgh Festival
Premiered at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on 26 January 2020
3 hrs / one interval
In English language with German and English surtitles
Pre-performance lecture (in German): 45 minutes prior to each performance
About the performance
Scarcely any other work of world literature breathes music in the same manner as William Shakespeare's “A Midsummer Night's Dream”. Elves dance through the night in the summery enchanted forest and sing the fairy queen Titania to sleep. Music accompanies the wedding celebration of the royal couple Hippolyta and Theseus, as well as the young lovers Hermia and Lysander, and Helena and Demetrius – when they have finally found each other in the midsummer's night after an erotic cycle of desire and disappointment, of confusion and disarray. And music rings out in the crassly humourous game in the play “Pyramus and Thisbe”, performed by six "highly skilled" craftsmen.
A Midsummer Night's Dream has inspired musicians for centuries. Yet the work only became a permanently successful opera a good 360 years after it debuted on stage, with Britten's musical version that debuted in 1960. He had arranged the original text by Shakespeare and scored it as a light, fairy tale-like and frequently witty masterwork with references to opera history.
It is staged by young American director Ted Huffman, who after a series of directorial works in France recently made a name for himself in the German-speaking world with his staging of Händel's RINALDO in Frankurt, MADAMA BUTTERFLY at the Opernhaus Zurich, and SALOME at the Oper Köln.
Synopsis
Act One
The story is set in Athens and a nearby forest during mythological times. In the realm of the fairies, a quarrel breaks out between King Oberon and Queen Titania over a human boy. To get his way, Oberon instructs the mischievous Puck to sprinkle a magical potion into Titania’s eyes while she sleeps, causing her to fall in love with the first creature she sees upon waking. Meanwhile, two young couples flee into the forest: Lysander and Hermia, and Demetrius and Helena. Helena, Hermia’s friend, is now her rival, as both are in love with Demetrius. Although Helena still loves Demetrius, he has shifted his affections to Hermia, whom her father wants her to marry. Oberon wants to help Helena by making Demetrius fall in love with her again through the same magic potion. But Puck makes a mistake and gives the potion to Lysander, who then falls for Helena. Unaware of the chaos, a group of craftsmen rehearse a comedic tragedy, Pyramus and Thisbe, which they intend to perform at the wedding of Duke Theseus.
Act Two
During one rehearsal, Puck transforms the weaver Bottom into a donkey. His fellow craftsmen run away in fear, but under the potion’s spell, Titania falls passionately in love with him. Meanwhile, the love triangle among the young Athenians leads to jealousy and confusion. Oberon intervenes just in time to stop a fight by separating and bewildering them.
Act Three
At dawn, Oberon restores order. He returns Bottom to his human form, and the young lovers awaken, believing the events to have been nothing more than strange dreams. Lysander is reunited with Hermia, and Demetrius now truly loves Helena again. Oberon and Titania are reconciled. At Theseus’s wedding celebration, everyone enjoys the craftsmen’s hilarious performance of Pyramus and Thisbe. The Duke gives his blessing to both couples, Lysander and Hermia, and Demetrius and Helena, who are now paired with the right partners after all the confusion.
Program and cast
Conductor: Dalia Stasevska
Director: Ted Huffman
Set design: Marsha Ginsberg
Costumes: Annemarie Woods
Light design: D. M. Wood
Choreographer: Sam Pinkleton
Choreographer (Puck): Ran Arthur Braun
Children's Chorus: Christian Lindhorst
Oberon: Iestyn Davies
Tytania: Alexandra Oomens
Puck: Jami Reid-Quarrell
Theseus: Padraic Rowan
Hippolyta: Lucy Baker
Lysander: Kieran Carrel
Demetrius: Dean Murphy
Hermia: Stephanie Wake-Edwards
Helena: Maria Vasilevskaya
Bottom: Patrick Guetti
Quince: Jared Werlein
Flute: Kangyoon Shine Lee
Snug: Joel Allison
Snout: Jörg Schörner
Starveling: Benjamin Dickerson
Cobweb: N. N.
Peaseblossom: N. N.
Mustardseed: N. N.
Moth: N. N.
Chorus: Kinderchor der Deutschen Oper Berlin
Orchestra: Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin
Photo gallery
© Bettina Stöß
© Bettina Stöß
Deutsche Oper Berlin
The Deutsche Oper Berlin is an opera company located in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin, Germany. The resident building is the country's second largest opera house and also home to the Berlin State Ballet.
The company's history goes back to the Deutsches Opernhaus built by the then independent city of Charlottenburg—the "richest town of Prussia"—according to plans designed by Heinrich Seeling from 1911. It opened on November 7, 1912 with a performance of Beethoven's Fidelio, conducted by Ignatz Waghalter. After the incorporation of Charlottenburg by the 1920 Greater Berlin Act, the name of the resident building was changed to Städtische Oper (Municipal Opera) in 1925.
Deutsches Opernhaus, 1912
With the Nazi Machtergreifung in 1933, the opera was under control of the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. Minister Joseph Goebbels had the name changed back to Deutsches Opernhaus, competing with the Berlin State Opera in Mitte controlled by his rival, the Prussian minister-president Hermann Göring. In 1935, the building was remodeled by Paul Baumgarten and the seating reduced from 2300 to 2098. Carl Ebert, the pre-World War II general manager, chose to emigrate from Germany rather than endorse the Nazi view of music, and went on to co-found the Glyndebourne opera festival in England. He was replaced by Max von Schillings, who acceded to enact works of "unalloyed German character". Several artists, like the conductor Fritz Stiedry or the singer Alexander Kipnis followed Ebert into emigration. The opera house was destroyed by a RAF air raid on 23 November 1943. Performances continued at the Admiralspalast in Mitte until 1945. Ebert returned as general manager after the war.
After the war, the company in what was now West Berlin used the nearby building of the Theater des Westens until the opera house was rebuilt. The sober design by Fritz Bornemann was completed on 24 September 1961. The opening production was Mozart's Don Giovanni. The new building opened with the current name.
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