Heating Up “˜Midsummer’

In Robert Tannenbaum’s Fairyland, the fairies don’t
fly, they ride scooters. They don’t wear forest greenery, but
they might have hot pink or blond hair. And they certainly
don’t bear any resemblance to Tinkerbell ““ unless she
was secretly an erotic lesbian.

“It’s always interesting to see a new interpretation
of a piece of work that you are already familiar with and take for
granted,” said Karenssa LeGear, a fourth-year transfer vocal
performance student who plays Puck. “And this production has
a lot of different little quirks.”

From Feb. 2 to Feb. 11, Opera UCLA and the UCLA Philharmonia
will be performing Benjamin Britten’s “A Midsummer
Night’s Dream” in Schoenberg Hall. One of the most
successful adaptations of Shakespeare’s work into opera,
Britten’s version was written in 1960 and, aside from some
reduced scenes, faithfully transformed the play into opera.

SLIDESHOW
Click here to see a slideshow of photos from the dress
rehearsal.

“Britten took Shakespeare’s original play and
without changing any of the words, made a version that was suitable
for his vision of what the opera could be like on stage,”
said conductor Neal Stulberg, UCLA’s visiting director of
orchestral studies. “One major difference is that the opera
takes place mainly in the world of the fairies and the woods,
emphasizing the powers of nature in the story ““ the
mysterious, erotic forces that compel the characters to act the way
they do.”

This production will be directed by Tannenbaum, an American
director who has been working in Germany for the past 20 years. His
background gives the opera an international perspective that may
surprise those used to American opera.

“I think doing an opera is like buying bread,” he
said. “If you buy Wonderbread, everyone will eat it and
everyone will like it mildly enough, but you won’t offend
anyone. I see my operas as dark pumpernickel bread with lots of
caraway seeds. Some people love that stuff; some people find it
distasteful; for some people it’s just sort of unusual.
Whether that unusualness disturbs them or not depends on the
person.”

Peabody Southwell, an opera performance graduate student, sees
this production as a way for UCLA students to expand their
perceptions of opera.

“This is a window for UCLA to see art production in other
places, and Germany has one of the premiere opera
productions,” Southwell said. “In American productions,
the fairies are wearing sticks and feathers and walk around,
whereas in Germany they’ll take a lot more risks. And I think
if people don’t get too pissed off at us for it, it will make
the play a lot more accessible to college students.”

Whether these risks pay off depends on the audience’s
perceptions, Tannenbaum said.

“The play is filled with lots of bawdy, sexy situations,
and opera in America tends to sanitize everything. I get accused a
lot of making things weird and different, but I just see myself as
taking away the old varnish and getting back to what’s
there,” he said. “So it just depends on people’s
attitudes on the sexy and erotic side of life.”

Two major changes made by Tannenbaum were the move to an
all-female cast and shifting the setting from a European forest to
Thailand.

“The fairies are supposed to be choir boys, but we
don’t have choir boys, so we have girls,” said
Southwell, who plays Oberon. “So we’re Thai lesbians,
which is very cool.”

The fairies in this show aren’t going to be found in
Hallmark cards or Disney movies, Tannenbaum emphasizes.

“It’s a fairly racy show, but there’s no
nudity, no foul language, no violence ““ but there’s
lots of seduction and eroticism on stage,” Tannenbaum said.
“It’s a lot more interesting to be erotic clothed than
to be erotic naked.”

Southwell also took note of the sexual nature of
Tannenbaum’s production.

“One of the things he wanted to bring out in the fairy
world was that there are no sexual boundaries, so we’re all
very touchy-feely and make out with each other,” she said.
“The opera is very funny, and I think audiences will be able
to appreciate it as long as they are prepared for girls to
kiss.”

Tannenbaum’s production also changes the amount of energy
on stage, leading to a more lively production than opera patrons
may be used to.

“This production is especially theatrical. It’s not
just people standing and singing ““ there’s lots of
movement and people singing from very uncomfortable
positions,” LeGear said.

Despite these changes, Tannenbaum insists his interpretation
stays true to Shakespeare’s vision, which wasn’t
exactly a sanitized one.

“It is a piece about sex, love, jealousy, revenge, all the
things that happen when people have a summer fling,” he said.
“I don’t think I’ve done anything other than
stick to the themes that Shakespeare wrote about anyhow, which were
young people getting crazy.”

The orchestration of the opera, however, doesn’t involve
any changes to Britten’s original work.

“We are just trying to present the genius of this score as
beautifully as we can,” Stulberg said.

He noted that one aspect of the orchestration that makes it
interesting is the unusual instrumentation, specifically the use of
two harps, one player to play harpsichord and celesta, and unusual
percussion, including vibraphone and cymbals.

“The piece is an absolute miracle in terms of the sounds
that come out of the orchestra, the different moods that are
created onstage and the whole atmosphere of the story,”
Stulberg said.

While cast members said they hope students will attend this
production because it offers a distinct challenge to the stereotype
of opera as boring, inaccessible and outdated, Stulberg also sees
this production as an opportunity for audiences to experience
Shakespeare in a new way.

“”˜A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ is an opera
that has not been seen very often in Los Angeles, so this is a rare
opportunity to hear a contemporary take on a classic Shakespeare
play,” Stulberg said. “And I hope that the audience
will be engaged by the costumes, the scenery, the energy coming off
the stage and the drama.”

Tannenbaum also hopes the audience is engaged by the opera, but
for a different reason.

“I want them to have a good time, because that is what
Shakespeare wanted,” he said. “I want the audience to
come in and have a good time, laugh, enjoy what they see, and go
out feeling good about the evening.”