I was a little surprised arriving at Glyndebourne to discover that I was there to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Benjamin Britten because I had spent all the previous months in the booking processes on the false assumption that we were going to see The Fairy Queen by Purcell. This is also based on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and we saw it at Glyndebourne in 2012.
We had also seen Britten's version before, in 2016, and I was very happy to go to either. No harm done, just some slight embarrassment.
Oddly none of our regular guests put this opera top of their list so just the two of us went, which made planning the arrangement so much easier. We travelled light with just a few sandwiches and some cakes planning to buy all our drinks there.
As is our practice when travelling by train, we arrived in Lewes in plenty of time to have a light lunch at The Depot next to the station and to have bit of a stroll around old Lewes before taking the pre-booked coach to Lewes.
There was bit of a rush to the Veg Patch Stretch Tent, our new favourite dining place there, and we were lucky to bag what looked to be the last unreserved table. Apparently, it has quickly become other people's favourite dining place.
The pre-opera period was easily filled with a round of cakes, hot drinks and a leisurely walk around the gardens.
At 4pm we made out way to our seats in Red Upper Circle Row D which cost us £146 each. Given the price of concert tickets these days that seems very reasonable.
The opera jumps in to the familiar story after the slow scene setting with the two couples already running through the woods and Oberon was already scheming against Tytania.
Everything after that was magic.
Glyndebourne has exceptionally high standards and by those standards I felt that it had fallen a little short this year but this was top-notch stuff and more than made up for any previous slight disappointments.
The music was subtle, the singing lovely and the staging simple but stunning. Of course the story is very silly, and Oberon has no right to get away with how he behaved, but that was known beforehand and Shakespeare already forgiven.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream was exactly the sort of opera that I keep going back to Glyndebourne to see.
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