A Midsummer Night’s Dream at New York City Ballet - David H. Koch Theater

Dates: (6/3/2014 - 6/8/2014 )

Theatre:

New York City Ballet - David H. Koch Theater

20 Lincoln Center
New York,NY NY 10023

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Phone: 212-496-0600

Tickets: $29.00 - $159.00

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Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream is one of his happiest and most loved comedies. It is called a "Dream" because of the unrealistic events the characters experience in the play — real, yet unreal: Crossed lovers, meaningless quarrels, forest chases leading to more confusion, and magic spells woven by the infamous Puck.

Balanchine was familiar with Shakespeare’s play from an early age. As a child he had appeared as an elf in a production in St. Petersburg, and he could recite portions of the play by heart in Russian. Balanchine loved Mendelssohn’s overture and incidental music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream (composed respectively in 1826 and 1843), and it is this score, Balanchine later said, that inspired his choreography. Mendelssohn had written only about an hour’s worth of music for the play, not enough for an evening-length dance work, so Balanchine studied the composer’s other oeuvre, finally selecting a number of additional overtures, a nocturne, an intermezzo, and a portion of Symphony No. 9, to weave together the ballet’s score.

Midsummer night has long been associated with love and magic. In European folklore it is the one night of the year when supernatural beings such as fairies are about and can interact with the real world. It is also a date that falls near the summer solstice, which was traditionally a time for fertility rites and festivals devoted to love. Shakespeare’s 1595 play has been the source for films, an opera by Benjamin Britten (1960), and a one-act ballet by Frederick Ashton, called The Dream (1964). George Balanchine’s version, which premiered in 1962, was the first wholly original evening-length ballet he choreographed in America. Two years later, on April 24, A Midsummer Night’s Dream opened the New York City Ballet’s first repertory season at the New York State Theater (now the David H. Koch Theater).

Cast and Creative team for A Midsummer Night’s Dream at New York City Ballet - David H. Koch Theater

Choreography by: George Balanchine
Music by: Felix Mendelssohn

Costumes by
Karinska
Set by
David Hays, assisted by Peter Harvey
Lighting by
Ronald Bates (original production); Mark Stanley (current production)

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