A Midsummer Night’s Dream

All the World's a Stage. Britten's magical opera recorded at the Glyndebourne Festival in 1981 in Peter Hall's setting

Director
Peter Hall

Performers
Ileana Cotrubas
James Bowman
Ryland Davies
Dale Duesing
Cynthia Buchan
Felicity Lott
Curt Applegren

London Philharmonic Orchestra
Glyndebourne Festival Chorus
Glyndebourne Festival Opera Company
Bernard Haitink (conductor)

Filmed at the old theatre in 1981, Glyndebourne's production of Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream stars Ileana Cotrubas as Tytania and James Bowman as Oberon, while Swedish bass-baritone Curt Applegren gives a vivid performance as Bottom.

This brilliantly adapted Shakespeare play follows the adventures of four lovers and a group of naive rustics who, in a wood on a moonstruck night, fall foul of the quarrelling King and Queen of the Fairies - Tytania and Oberon. In Hall's remarkable staging the very wood comes alive as logs and trees move and rustle, creating ambiguous silhouettes in the dark, mysterious woodland lit only by the sun and moon.