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Richmond Symphony, directed by Mark Russell Smith, will accompany the performers with the delightful musical score by Felix Mendelssohn. Meanwhile, outlandish characters will come to life in the form of Richmond Ballet dancers with the help of the singers and narrators. Combining forces, these artists will deliver an unforgettable evening of dance, live music, drama, song and mayhem.
First produced for Richmond audiences in 2006, A Midsummer Night's Dream made Style Weekly's Lea Marshall "wish for more." Granting that wish, the Ballet will offer three public performances – up from two in 2006 – of the multifaceted production that Marshall said "succeeded in both evoking the richness and charm of Shakespeare's comedy and celebrating the lovely ribbons of music in Mendelssohn's score."
A Synopsis of a Dream
One of Shakespeare's early comedies, A Midsummer Night's Dream is light, witty and known for its lyrical dialogue. Scholars believe that this play was created as entertainment for a wedding celebration, and its overriding themes of love, marriage and romance support that idea. The whimsical tale follows errant love stories in the human world and the fairy world as the escapades of the lovers overlap from one realm to the next.
The human lovers, Hermia and Lysander and Helena and Demetrius, get caught in the schemes of Oberon, king of the fairies, when he sends his servant Puck to sprinkle a love potion on Titania, the queen of the fairies. The potion causes its object to fall in love with the first person she sees upon waking. Titania awakes and proclaims her devotion to Bottom, a weaver turned into a donkey, and Lysander, also affected by the potion when the fairies begin to meddle with the humans, falls in love with Helena. The comedy unfolds as the mismatched characters travel through the forest throughout the night behaving outlandishly. Adding to the mayhem is the "play within the play" as Bottom and his band of men rehearse the production they will present at a wedding scheduled for the following day. By morning the confusion is solved thanks to the work of Puck, and the worlds of the fairies and humans are reordered once more. -- www.richmondballet.com
Posted January 24th, 2008 by ruzik_tuzik
