About the work
Benjamin Britten's three-act opera, based on Shakespeare's comedy, was premiered at the 1960 Aldeburgh Festival. Britten and Peter Pears radically cut Shakespeare's text but kept its language intact, crafting three sharply distinct sound-worlds: the fairy realm (countertenor and boys' chorus), the lovers (strings) and the rustics (woodwinds).
Plot
In the wood near Athens, the fairy king Oberon and queen Tytania are quarrelling over an Indian boy. Oberon orders his servant Puck to fetch a magic flower whose juice makes the sleeper fall in love with the first creature seen on waking. The young lovers Hermia and Lysander flee Athens, pursued by Demetrius and the lovesick Helena. Puck enchants the wrong men, so that both pursue Helena instead. Tytania, dosed with the juice, falls for the weaver Bottom, on whom Puck has clapped an ass's head. After a night of confusion Oberon undoes the spells: Tytania returns to him and the lovers are correctly paired. In the third act, the rustics' parodic „Pyramus and Thisbe" play is performed at Theseus' palace, after which the fairies bless the sleeping bridal couples.
Cultural significance
Britten's Midsummer is the most important Shakespeare opera of the twentieth century and one of his most orchestrally refined scores. Oberon's countertenor part, originally written for Alfred Deller, established the modern operatic countertenor as a leading voice. Puck's spoken role and the eerily glissando string opening are iconic moments of post-war opera.