By Megan
Link: https://stream.roh.org.uk/products/the-dream-2017
Available until: 18th April 2021
The Dream is based on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and it’s a beautiful ballet. It doesn’t tell the full story, there’s no Theseus and Hippolyta, and the Mechanicals (apart from Bottom) only have a very short appearance but you do get to see the Lovers and the Fairies.
It is a really lovely, magical ballet and it is one of my favourites. I used to want to be a ballet dancer when I grow up and I still go to classes when they happen and I’ve been practising all through lockdown. But I don’t think I’m talented enough so I would like to be a doctor instead. I would like to help dancers, actors, other performers and sportspeople manage long-term injuries, disabilities and mental and physical health conditions so maybe I will work with ballet dancers sometimes.
The choreography is by Frederick Ashton to music by Felix Mendelssohn. The choreography is very beautiful but it also shows what all the characters are like. It is hard to be sure but I think someone who didn’t know the play would still understand what is happening in the ballet. For the music John Lanchbery adapted the incidental music Mendelssohn had composed for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Some of it is a bit surprising like the Wedding March happens before anyone gets married but the music still works with what is happening. Emmanuel Plasson conducts the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House beautifully and you can hear the magic, the romance, the comedy or whatever emotion the scene needs in the orchestra’s playing.
David Walker is the designer and John B. Read is the lighting designer. The stage is full of blue moonlight and you can see the dark shadows of trees around the stage but there is lots of space for the dancing. It is easy to believe the ballet happens at night and that it happens in a magical place.
Oberon is played by Steven McRae and he has a beautiful floaty blue costume which is perfect for his choreography. He looks very handsome and commanding. Akane Takada is Titania. She and Oberon have a brilliant angry scene at the start when they are fighting over Ambrose Bartlett’s Changeling Indian Boy but she shows her romantic side later on. Valentino Zucchetti is a mischievous Puck. He is full of energy and he almost skips around the stage.
Bennet Gartside is really funny as Bottom. He appears with a group of rustics at the start but they get separated and Puck decides to play the trick on him and turns him into a donkey. He is very sweet. When he is wearing the donkey head he dances en pointe! He looks so elegant and I really like that because donkeys aren’t usually seen as elegant. I think it might be called a contranym but I might have got that wrong because I am only ten and I get things wrong sometimes.
I really like the way the Four Lovers are choreographed. Lysander and Hermia are a really sweet couple but Mr Ashton also had to choreograph Helena chasing Demetrius, Helena running away from Lysander and then all four lovers having a bit of a fight because they don’t understand what is happening. I think it is a sad scene really but it is funny in the play and it is really funny in the ballet too. I love the way the different pairs dance together in a way that shows one of them doesn’t want to be part of the dance. It happens a few times but each time is different. Tomas Mock is quite a proud Demetrius, Matthew Ball is ardent as Lysander Itziar Mendizabal’s Helena is dramatic and Claire Calvert is an emotional Hermia. I really like all of them.
This is a really lovely ballet of one of my favourite
plays in the world. Everything is perfect.
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