Pocket Opera just successfully pulled off a seriously ambitious production last month: Benjamin Britten's 1960 adaptation of the Shakespeare comedy
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Britten composed grand operas like
Peter Grimes, Billy Budd, and
Gloriana, while also composing chamber operas with small orchestras such as
The Rape of Lucretia,
Albert Herring, and
The Turn of the Screw.
A Midsummer Night's Dream falls somewhere in between in terms of orchestral size, so Pocket Opera commissioned an orchestral reduction from Liam Daley with the blessing of the Britten estate. Daley did a marvelous job, making me miss the full orchestra on only a few occasions. There was no editing, however, on the opera itself or the huge cast of characters, and somehow General Director Nicolas A. Garcia managed to stage the proceedings on the tiny Legion of Honor stage last Sunday without everyone banging into each other.
The standout singer of the production was countertenor Kyle Tingzon as Oberon, the King of the Fairies in the scary, enchanted wood. One of the greatest operatic performances I have ever seen was by the late Brian Asawa as Oberon when the SF Opera last presented the work in 1992, and Tingzon was as good as Asawa. He's ready to sing the role on any stage in the world. The role of Puck was originally written as a speaking role for a teenage acrobat, and here was charmingly performed by Atlantis Clay minus the acrobatic tumbling. Oberon and Puck spend most of the narrative concocting maliciously nasty pranks, but Tingzon and Clay played the duo as amiable characters just having a bit of fun.
The "rude mechanicals," workmen rehearsing a ridiculously terrible play, were a fun bunch, and didn't overdo their comic business. Kirk Eichelberger as the blustering, egocentric Bottom who wants to play every role, bellowed loudly and he was a fine ass.
The Pyramus and Thisbe troupe often steal the show, in the play and the opera, but in this production they were overshadowed by the quartet of quarreling lovers: a particularly fine Ellen Leslie as Helena, Leah Finn as Hermia, Kevin Gino as Lysander, and Spencer Dodd as Demetrius. Their interactions and their playing off of each other musically and dramatically was first-rate, and when all turns to cacophony among them at the end of Act Two, they were amazing.
I do have one serious complaint with the production, however. Britten specifically wrote the roles of individual fairies and larger chorus for boy sopranos. Unfortunately, only one boy soprano, the delightful James Coniglio, was cast as a Fairy and the rest were sung by adult women. They sounded all wrong. Britten composed some of the greatest children's music ever written, and knew what he wanted in terms of sound. The gender of the fairies isn't important, but a child's voice versus an adult's voice are two very different things, and part of what makes this opera so great is the ethereal sound Britten creates for fairyland. The finale, with the soprano voices of a countertenor, a silvery adult female soprano, and a chorus of child sopranos, is one of the most beautiful things that Britten or any other composer has ever written. If and when Pocket Opera revives this production, and I hope they do, please cast the fairy roles appropriately. There are half a dozen great childrens' choruses in the Bay Area, so there's really no excuse not to do the music right.
