I had perhaps unreasonably high expectations of this, not least because it was the first opera I had gone to see outside of Hungary for almost two years and for me, a strong sign that life (or at least certain important aspects of my life) were getting back to normal.
Sadly, this was not the case. I was not engaged and involved for the first part (Acts 1 and 2) and only spasmodically for the final act.
The visuals of the production were, in certain aspects, interesting. The children’s choir of faeries, in silky grey frock coats with kohl-rimmed eyes and slicked back hair was an interesting image but I did not feel that anything was done with it dramatically. This was a pity as this ‘look’ matched the sound world created by the opening. The musical performance by them was superb. It has the potential to be nicely darkly sinister view of the world of Oberon and Titania but nothing was done with it – and the stage set – a stark grey box did not really evoke the darkness/power/mystery of the forest which is so remarkably and disturbingly caught in the opening of the work with the string glissandi. This musical effect sets the mood wonderfully but with this production, no use or connection was made with it. Titania and Oberon were dressed very similarly to the faeries, as was the aerialist Puck.
The ‘comic’ mechanicals were unutterably dire (a.k.a. totally unfunny), with laboured slapstick that I had the feeling many of the performers were slightly embarrassed by. The one exception, and the musical star of the production, was Bottom, the young bass Patrick Guetti who had a superbly powerful and resonant voice that outshone everyone else’s on the stage – and he had some stage presence and did manage to make something of the very limited and unimaginative guidance that the mechanicals had been given by the director.
The other performers were…adequate (although Oberon was distinctly underpowered) and the pairs of lovers were relatively undifferentiated.
The final act did improve somewhat but by then it was too late, for me, to save the performance. Back at the court, the stage was transformed by being covered in bright red material on the floor and sides (so why was Hippolyta also dressed in very similar shades so that she was almost lost on the stage?) And there would surely have been potential, to stress the difference between the two worlds, by using a range of very vivid and striking contrasting colours with all the costumes in this final act rather than the same ones used earlier. This, I felt, was typical of the production in that not enough thought (much at all?) had been put into the production. I’m not actually saying I could have done better but…