Saturday, October 01, 2016
A midsummer Night's dream that is a real blissful pleasure
BENJAMIN
BRITTEN – A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM – GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU - 2005
First the libretto.
There is little to say about the
libretto of this opera adapted from the eponymous play by William Shakespeare.
Their adaptation is essentially a shortening of the text but it is mostly a
text that comes directly from Shakespeare’s play, hence in Shakespeare’s
language which is poetical, musical and extremely rich, in the case of this
comedy, in humor, even satire of both society and the practices or customs of
the dramatic stage in Shakespeare’s time. The social criticism can be just
implied though not directly expressed. It is the case of marriage practices.
For both the wealthy and the powerful marriage was a family business: the
father authorized, hence gave consent, to a marriage if it fitted his economic
or social interests, particularly his influence and power.
This compulsory consent up to the
age of twenty-one in a time when life expectancy was twenty nine years, was
duly enforced with a minimum age for the marriage of girl in Shakespeare’s time
between ten and thirteen with only one obligation: consent from the father, a
parent, the guardian or some official if the previous ones were absent. In the
play the law that is criticized is Athenian and the father can require death for
a daughter who refuses to marry the man this father has chosen, with for the
Duke of Athens the possibility to commute this death penalty into a life
“imprisonment” in the temple of some goddess that will impose celibacy and
virginity.
It is well understood that
economically the men and the women are from the same social condition, meaning
wealthy. That’s the part Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears cut off, hence the
whole beginning of Shakespeare’s play. There will only be some allusions to it,
especially at the end but it will have little value since the young people have
solved their own problem with a little help from their friends the fairies.
This choice is wise since such a situation does not speak to us any more except
when we are considering the practice of forced marriages in some foreign
civilizations and within the context of some religions in the world,
particularly in the Moslem world.
The play starts in the forest and
will stay in the forest till the second and last scene of the third act. This
is also a wise choice because it makes the play even lighter than in
Shakespeare’s version. It becomes a real entertainment that could be seen as a
masque or even a pantomime due to the fairies and magic. Puck, Oberon and
Titania are all beings of the underworld, which used to be a difficult subject
in Elizabethan times, but which is today banal and common place though
generally in children’s literature. Harry Potter is today a master in the field
but he is not alone. Some may say that Harry Potter is not really for children
but rather for young adults. Let’s say some people are precautious and we can
consider a fifteen year old person either an older child or a younger person,
not yet an adult but not far from it. The text of the libretto is very systematically
ambiguous between a sexy reading or just a farcical reading. Of course as soon
as it is set to a stage some choices are necessary that make this ambiguity
either a pun-like discourse, playing on words, or a choice towards one
interpretation. That’s why we can hesitate in front of this libretto: is it a
children’s piece of literature and entertainment, or is it a farce based on
innuendo, ambiguous meanings and erotic situations and language. That’s the
main merit of this libretto. It really let the conductor and director free to
go one way or the other.
One thing is sure in the
libretto. Since most of the opera takes place in the underworld, in a forest,
during one night, the midsummer night, Saint John’s day and night, with
celebrations generally around or on the Summer solstice, a festive period in
the fertile and happy direction, we can consider we are in foreign territory
and thus we, the audience, are the foreigners. But in this foreign territory we
have four young people, two women and two men, who are spending the night there
more or less by accident and who are going to be the victims of tricks, pranks
and mistakes from Puck and Oberon. These four are the first group of
foreigners, or strangers. The second group counts six artisans, craftsmen or
tradesmen from Athens Athens
But in Shakespeare’s time fairies
and fairyland would have been seen, understood and even by some resented as
some strange and foreign underworld not to be mentioned. This dimension
disappears in modern times and Benjamin Britten and his partner Peter Pears
(who sang the part of Lysander, one of the two young men lost in the forest) play
on this fairyland as an estrangement for the audience and the last scene brings
the audience back to earth with yet another estrangement with the play in the
play that brings on the stage a lion, talking mind you, the moon, also talking
and a wall that has a lot to say. Estrangement inside the bringing back of the
audience from a long and previous estrangement of another sort, more magical.
The whole play works because of these dimensions and the opera here amplifies
this aspect by cutting off the opening part in the Duke’s palace in Athens
In other words, a good libretto
for a modern opera that can be read in many different ways.
Second the opera and the music.
From the very start we know we
are going to be in an innovative approach. No realism at all. The setting is a
vast inclined green surface cattycorner on the stage in the shape of a vast bed
with two enormous pillows on the left. Green like the forest, a bed like
sleeping and dreaming and a vast surface that enables the actors, and they are
going to be actors, to do all their antics unrestrained.
The fairies are all boys and of
course trebles. They are dressed in a very particular way, all of them the
same: some kind of grayish and greenish hair, a greenish mustache, a green long
tail tuxedo, blue pants and red gloves. They act in various ways but always
organized in a clear fashion, a line or several lines, or groups, etc. They are
twenty and can divide in groups of four or five easily.
The surprise comes with Puck who
is a lot older than the other fairies. The producer wanted an actor able to be
very expressive in body language and he is. He also has to be acrobatic because
of the type of action he takes. He is only walking on his two feet but when he
is supposed to disappear he runs to the top left corner of the inclined surface
and just jumps or dives in a way or another behind the green surface. That
makes him natural and in no way laughable. He is the basic empathetic character
who reverberates in his action and expression, face, language and body, the
emotions he may feel and the people he is dealing with are feeling. He is like
a grotesque mirror of the characters. In spite of the surprise due to his age,
we very fast get acquainted to him and he becomes natural. He will end more or
less attached to the big red curtain at the end as if he were climbing on that
curtain like a cat or something.
The colors of the fairies are of
course symbolical of the fairyland they live in; Oberon is dressed in green,
Titania in blue and the Indian child, who is of course not a real child since
it is only a prop in this production, is red. This touch of red in an
essentially green and blue world is quite striking and it is perfect for the
disturbing third element that the Indian baby is.
That’s when the human characters
come in and they are systematically going to be dressed in one color essentially,
some creamy white in-between pearl and vanilla custard. In other words they are
going to stick out like so many sore thumbs. These are the noble or wealthy people.
The craftsmen or tradesmen are dressed more casually but mostly in the brown
range. For the play in the play they will be dressed in some funny ancient way
like Romans with togas of various shapes and length and all in some whitish
light material.
The first act then is just played
on this green surface and the big pillows can be uncovered from the green sheet
covering the vast surface and the landscape becomes a real giant bed in which
some can go to sleep. The two couples have many props representing their
travelling: an umbrella that can become a weapon, a hat box that can contains
other props, etc. The actors are dropping them everywhere and using them
defensively, aggressively, or whatever, but they always pick them up at the end
of each sequence. Do not litter please. Very English.
Note that Oberon, when Titania is
asleep in the big green bed with her Indian child, steals the baby once and for
all which will justify what he will say later that he has the child and thus
can play round, have his revenge, etc
The second act will still use the
vast green inclined surface for the forest, entirely covered by the green sheet
and the two big pillows have gone. But seven beds have been installed in some
kind of geometrical order, four in the front and three in the back. The very
disposition of these green beds is fascinating. The whole action is happening
in these beds and on these beds. Titania and her ass paramour are going from
one bed to the next to finally end up in one bed at the back. The game played
by these two is deeply visually obscene with an extremely well endowed
Bottom-ass and the fairies who are supposed to scratch the ass’s head and back
are acting like disgusted children who do it because they have been ordered to
do it but not with any kind of willingness and enthusiasm. They despise this
ass whose head they have to scratch. One even puts dark plastic surgical gloves
on to do it.
The human couples are finally
brought in and they are guided by Puck to the four front beds in proper order,
alternating the men and the women and preparing the re-union of the expected
lovers and couples, Hermia next to Lysander, Helena next to Demetrius. Since
they have been fighting in the forest and had already been soiled with green
stains on their clothes and props, they reappear to be put to bed in their body
clothing vastly tainted with green and in tatters.
At the end of the second act we
thus have the four humans in the front beds and in the three back beds from let
to right we have Puck, all the fairies piled up on the middle bed and Titania
and her ass in the bed on the right.
The third act is still in the
forest for the first scene which is the awakening of the three sleeping couples
and the end of Oberon’s revenge. A big frontal red curtain had been dropped in
front of the setting to enable the changes in the disposition of beds and
actors. The inclined surface is all green and there are only three beds
suspended in mid air. From left to right, first the two human couples reunified
and then on the right Titania and her ass.
The action, starts with Oberon
and Titania. Her bed is brought down and Oberon gets even with her. He is
carrying the baby and will drag it on the floor at the end of the scene like
and as the prop it is. Then the two human couples will come down and strangely
enough their tattered body clothing has been transformed in clean white
undergarments, both men and women.
After Bottom’s flashback on when
he was an ass, the fairies make the three beds very neatly, five fairies per bed
and the beds dragging up the whole green sheet of the ground go up and away
into the sky. The stage is now still an inclined surface but white and the last
scene at the Duke’s palace can take place. First the three married couples and
then the play in the play. This last moment in the opera is essential since it
is a farce and it mocks romantic passion and is supposed to make its audience
laugh at the silly performance. The actors come on stage in their underwear and
they will drape themselves in white sheets of various sizes. The wall has a
chink but it is not between two fingers. The director made the wall vast by
draping a sheet over long sticks held by the actor, on both sides with the
pattern of stones and the chink is a black hole positioned in a provocative and
obscene place both front and back right in the middle of the actor carrying
that wall. It is farcical of course and funny. The acting is perfect in that
line and the bergomask is transformed into a general dance for all the people
on the stage including the nobles and the wealthy.
That leads us to midnight and the
three couples of lovers are sent to bed by the Duke. The fairies and Puck take
over, the fairies marching in from left to right in five lines, five, then
five, then four, then four and finally two in front right: this geometrical
order is interesting because it emphasizes the slanting ground on which they
operate. Puck comes in with his broom to clean up and the twenty fairies bring
in Oberon and Titania. Five fairies on each side of Oberon and Titania, hence
twenty in four groups. The reconciliation is complete and Puck can climb on the
curtain to give us his final epilogue.
This is exactly what we expect
from this opera. The music is extremely dynamic and varied in tone and tempo
and it sounds as if at times it became hysterical, super dense and dynamic
accompanying the action perfectly. You will also recognize some groups of notes
now and then because quite a few allusions to existing musical melodies or
tunes are used by Britten. It is never a full sentence but just a few notes
sounding like some tunes you know.
This is in full agreement with
the strange ternary ending of the three married couples that is evened by a
fourth couple re-united at last. Three meaning disruption, Shakespeare could
not end on such a situation and this disruptive ending is softened and
sweetened into some equilibrium by the fourth couple. Shakespeare used that
pattern in “As You Like It” but this time with four couples getting married
under the supervision and blessing of the god of marriage, Hymen. We also have
to see that this production emphasizes the ternary pattern in the forest in the
first scene of the third act with three beds for the three couples. Once again
it could not be the end because of the disruptive nature of this ternary
pattern. But it is a good thing the stage direction and setting put that
ternary figure forward.
In other words and to conclude
let me say this production is what we can today expect from such an opera: a
very visual and abstract vision, a dream in other words that is built on simple
symbolism based on Shakespeare’s style and architecture. The vision has to be
pure patterns that become significant by their constant presence with the
contradiction between the ternary and the quaternary figures. This is amplified
by other elements like colors or the actors of the play in the play who are six
for sure, one playing director and the others acting, the couple of lovers being
trapped by three farcical elements, the moon (itself ternary: the man, the bush
and the dog in the moon), the lion and the wall, absolute confusion and
disorder that will cause the dramatic death of both lovers in the famous Romeo
and Juliet way. The director of the play, Peter Quine is of course the balancing
element but the balancing is based on six characters, three humans and three
animal or props. We can of course see in this pattern a common trait of
anti-Semitism which was very standard in Shakespeare’s time though Shakespeare
very often made it light or not too dramatic with the two exceptions of Titus
Andronicus and Othello.
Finally this production clearly
makes humans foreigners and strangers in the forest by being in the creamy
color range against the green, blue and red surrounding colors. And vice versa
for the fairies in the Duke’s palace. The tradesmen are the strangers or
foreigners or outsiders in both the forest and the Duke’s palace, being
brownish in the forest and plain white in the Duke’s palace. These colors are
emphasized by the styles of the clothes of the characters. We thus have three
“worlds” that are foreigners, strangers and outsiders to one another in the
various locales in the opera.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
# posted by Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU @ 3:09 AM 
