RCM takes Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream to underground Berlin

Wednesday 24 January 2018

 

Photo: Edmond Terakopian


Composed by Royal College of Music alumnus Benjamin Britten, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is presented by talented young singers from the RCM International Opera School on 5, 6, 8 and 10 March 2018.

Britten’s opera has been enthralling audiences since its first performance over 50 years ago. For the RCM’s production, the much-loved opera is given a dramatic new look by director Liam Steel, who sets the action in the underground world of Weimar Berlin.

Emerging from the wreckage of the First World War, the city became a hotbed for decadent revelry and entertainment. It is into this dark world that Steel places Oberon and Titania, King and Queen of the Fairies, four warring lovers and the mischievous Puck. From the ethereal to the outlandish, Britten’s orchestration brilliantly portrays each dream-like scene with distinctive musical signatures.  

Liam Steel is a Director, Choreographer and Movement Director. This production follows recent successful collaborations between the Royal College of Music and Steel including Britten’s Albert Herring (2015) and Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld (2010). Steel has also worked extensively with Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, co-directing Into the Woods in 2010 and J M Barrie’s Peter Pan in 2015. He has choreographed productions for the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the West End and Broadway.

Michael Rosewell returns to A Midsummer Night’s Dream after conducting a critically-acclaimed production with the English Touring Opera in 2010, including four-star reviews from What’s On Stage and The Daily Telegraph, who named him ‘the star of the evening […] whose conducting of the excellent orchestra attacks Britten’s score with tremendous panache’.

For more information and to buy tickets, call the RCM Box Office on 020 7591 4314, visit the RCM in person on Prince Consort Road SW7, or visit the A Midsummer Night’s Dream webpage

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