Opera review: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Published on Sunday 23 May 2010 20:21

PERTH FESTIVAL: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM ** PERTH THEATRE

ENGLISH Touring Opera's production of Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream – its third offering at this year's Perth Festival – got off to a bad start. The words – either from the first appearing principals (counter-tenor Jonathan Peter Kenny's woolly Oberon) or the small band of Fairies – were shockingly inaudible, and the absence of any surtitles (even English texts need them) will have left those unaware of the plot completely mystified.

Things got better with the entrances of the love interests – Niamh Kelly's sharper Hermia, Michael Bracegirdle's lyrical Lysander, Laura Mitchell's charming Helena and Robert Davies's rocksteady Demetrius – and was stunning (vocally) with the 11th hour appearances of Nicholas Lester as Theseus and Lise Christensen's commanding Hippolyta.

But this rerun of director James Conway's utilitarian production (it came to Perth a few years ago), was not an all-consuming experience.

The charmed character of Puck, whose flawed tinkering sets the chain of confusion in action, seemed – through actor David Gooderson's superbly wily, slithery performance – a natural piece of its fabric.

But the final act, the play within a play, seemed like a grafted-on necessity, leaving the closing moments more perfunctory than deserved.

All of which detracted due appreciation from Michael Rosewell's intuitive musical direction, and an orchestral wash that did everything to serve Britten's magically inspired score.