Benjamin Britten - A Midsummer Night's Dream - Warner Music Group Germany

Filmed at Glyndebourne Festival Opera - 1981

Glyndebourne's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream is pure magic. Brillantly adapted from Shakespear's play, the opera follows the adventures of four lovers and a group of naive rustics who, in a wood on a moonstruck midsummer night, fall foul of Oberon and Tytania, the quarrelling king and queen of the fairies. In Hall's remarkable staging the very wood comes alive as logs and trees move a rustle, creating ambiguous silhouettes in the dark mysterious woodland, lit only by designer John Bury's wonderful rising sun and moon.