Opera of the Week: What’s Bottom in Swedish?

Slippedisc, courtesy of OperaVision, transports readers to the world of  A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  With his lifelong companion Peter Pears, Benjamin Britten transformed Shakespeare’s play  into an operatic libretto and wrote its beautiful, enchanting music. Sorcery, entanglements and distorted perceptions of reality mean that everything is turned upside down for those seeking love in the woods. In Royal Swedish Opera’s new production of Shakespeare’s comic fantasy, a forest is more a psychological location than a physical one. Under the baton of Simon Crawford Phillips and stage direction of Tobias Theorell, the merry tale is transformed into an exploration of the subconscious.

The Plot:  two pairs of young lovers, more or less frustrated, flee into the woods to escape conventions and demands and to find their true selves. But the forest is a place not only of freedom, fancy and dreams but also nightmares, chaos and folly. This is the domain of Oberon and his queen Titania, who are in the middle of a marital crisis so serious that nature itself is in a state of imbalance.   Oberon is sung by Rodrigo Sosa Dal Pozzo, Titania by  Elin Rombo,  Puck by Robert Fux and Bottom by Peter Kajlinger.

Available from 12 May 2023 at 1900 CET / 1800 London/ 1300 NY