Britten in his Kingdom

The court of King Benjamin Britten was in Aldeburgh, a seaside town in the county of Suffolk. To inaugurate its Jubilee Hall, a theatre with seating capacity of not more than 300, the greatest of British opera composers - after Purcell - composed A Midsummer’s Night Dream in just seven months. Unlike The Fairy Queen, Britten and his partner, tenor Peter Pears, remained faithful to the text of Shakespeare: they only added one verse of their own to the original work.

As in the phantasmagorical The Turn of the Screw, Britten superimposes two worlds on the stage, the real and the unreal, each with its distinct characters (no less than 15, between lovers, rustics and fairies), and each associated with its own soundworld of different instrumental tones and musical language. Floating above the ensemble, as if a spectral light, is the voice of Oberon, the King of Fairies. This role was created for “the unique” countertenor Alfred Deller who performed the premiere.

The Teatro de la Maestranza welcomes the most wondrous of Britten’s operas for the first time, in the irresistible production from the Opéra de Lille which premiered in 2022. In the hands of stage director Laurent Pelly, the dream becomes an extravagance of fantasy, affection and playfulness. Fairies on a trapeze, mirrors which mislead, elves who light up like glowworms, illuminating a magical night where no-one sleeps and anything is possible. The enchantment continues as you leave the theatre. Guaranteed.

Opera in three acts by Benjamin Britten
Libretto by the composer and Peter Pears, based on the homonymous play by William Shakespeare
Premiere on 11 June 1960 at the Aldeburgh Festival, conducted by the composer
For the first time at the Teatro de la Maestranza