And so to the opera. The third of Opera North's season to celebrate Benjamin Britten's centenary is 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'.
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| "I will roar, that it will do any man's heart good to hear me" |
At the risk of being even more boring than usual, it was excellent. I'd never seen the opera before, but am obviously extremely familiar with the play (although my companion at the performance wasn't, she can be excused by the fact that she is French), but even so I found myself laughing hard at the mechanicals' play within a play. It didn't lose anything by being set to music. In fact I am more than familiar with both the play, the mechanicals in particular and with the whole thing being set to music. I once played (or perhaps I should say I created) the part of Flute the Bellows Mender in a musical version of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' written by Ronnie Cass, the genius behind 'Summer Holiday' and 'The Young Ones'. The idea was that once we had proved it to be a success it would then transfer to the West End. We didn't, it didn't and I never appeared on the stage again. Cass was a nice chap though.
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| Tom Snout |
You will recall that as the 'hard-handed men that work in Athens' prepare to put on their play Bottom is missing. On the last night that we were due to perform, our Bottom - Big George - was also missing. We had got as far as a run through with a substitute before he arrived looking unconcerned. Another case of life imitating art, although he denied having woken up with either fairy queen or asses head.
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| "And the best time is to sing while we're young" |
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