Read on for your daily 2024 BBC Proms preview from BBC Music Magazine. We're looking ahead to today's Prom, Prom 68 (Tuesday 10 September)... and it's Shakespeare time. More details below.
Keep coming back to www.classical-music.com during this last week of the Proms - it all culminates with the Last Night of the Proms on Saturday 14 September. Every day this Proms season we're previewing the daily Proms concerts at the Royal Albert Hall, including performers, repertoire and more. And, to see all of this year's Proms in one place (in London and at six other UK cities), just head over to our 2024 BBC Proms guide.
What's on at the BBC Proms today?
Today features a performance of Benjamin Britten's opera A Midsummer Night's Dream. Composed in 1960, the opera is an adaptation of Shakespeare's much-loved play of the same name. Britten composed the music, and collaborated on the libretto with his long-term partner and collaborator, the tenor Peter Pears.
The opera was premiered on 11 June 1960 at the Aldeburgh Festival, which Britten and Pears had founded with the librettist/producer Eric Crozier 12 years previously.
Britten's adaptation of Shakespeare's magical play focuses strongly on the story's supernatural elements, in particular the fairies. The music that Britten composed for the opera embodies the dreamlike qualities of A Midsummer Night's Dream, with some very imaginative orchestration.
What is the story of A Midsummer Night's Dream?
Like the play itself, Britten's opera has three key strands:
The Fairies: Oberon, the fairy king, and his queen Tytania are in a dispute over a changeling, whom Oberon wants as a knight but whom Tytania will not hand over. Miffed, Oberon commands the mischievous Puck to use his magical wiles to make Tytania fall in love with the first creature she sees after waking from a deep sleep. And we all know who that is - Bottom, a comic actor who's been changed into a donkey.
The Lovers: Two pairs of Athenian lovers (Lysander and Hermia; Demetrius and Helena) wander into the forest, where they are subjected to magical enchantments with the result that their loves are entangled. Until, that is, Puck steps in to sort out the muddle and pair up the lovers correctly again.
The Mechanicals: This group of amateur actors is rehearsing a play to celebrate the wedding of Duke Theseus and Hippolyta. The Mechanicals provide much of the play's (and opera's) comedy, with their hilarious rehearsal scenes and, of course, their hilariously wobbly performance.
Today's Proms performance is semi-staged. It will be sung in English, with English surtitles.
Who is performing at the BBC Proms today?
Prom 68, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is a Garsington Opera production. The music comes from the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Douglas Boyd. The soloists tonight include tenors Iestyn Davies as Oberon and Caspar Singh as Lysander, soprano Lucy Crowe as Tytania, and baritone Richard Burkhard as Bottom.
