Royal New Zealand Ballet's Midsummer's Nights Dream finishes off a dream year

A Midsummers Night’s Dream
Royal New Zealand Ballet
St James Wellington
November 25 - 28

This production of A Midsummer's Night’s Dream was originally staged in 2015 and it received universal praise. It has since been performed in Queensland and Hong Kong.

It has lost none of its vibrancy and charm since then; in fact, it seems to have even more magical qualities to it as the audience was transported to the enchanted kingdom of Oberon and Titania with its myriad of fairies created by Shakespeare and reinvented by the Royal New Zealand Ballet.

Choreographer Liam Scarlett has created a ballet which is a total art work, drawing on the talents of lighting dDesigner Kendall Smith and the costumes and set designs of Tracey Grant Lord providing the colours and textures of Midsummer where shadow and bluish half-light hide and disguise.

This was a totally engaging and compelling work with a production bringing out all the themes of love, passion, infatuation, jealousy and reconciliation set in a land of deception and illusion.

The ballet’s comedy of errors is set in train when the King of Fairyland, Oberon, with his helpful sprite, Puck, attempt to change the course of true love, resulting in several of the characters falling in love for another, having had a magical juice dropped into their eyes. One of these new romances develops between Oberon’s Queen Titania and a local rustic, Bottom, whom Puck has given a donkey’s head.

Qi Huan as Oberon gave a riveting performance with his superb macho athleticism in both his solos and duos. In his first solo, having been tricked by Titania, he displayed a range of conflicting emotions – pride, anguish, anger – all conveyed with aggressive leaps and extravagant posturing. His crisp gestures and mime used to convey his commands to Puck were elegant and effective.

Tonia Looker as Titania gave an equally compelling display, investing the part with a real depth of emotion, which she conveyed with her effortless dancing, culminating in her final duo with Oberon where she displayed annoyance, followed by a coquettish indifference and finally a romantic sensuality. Looker provided a delicacy of dancing which was reinforced by the bevy of fairies who occasionally filled the stage.

The major comic part of the dance is the relationship between Bottom and Titania, which is a strange meditation on the nature of love combining the elegance of Titania and the bumbling Rustic. Dancing the part of Bottom is difficult as the dancer must be both a dim-witted donkey and a sensitive lover. Harry Skinner managed to get the character just right, delightful when he performed en pointe with Tonia Looker, their mixture of classical and slightly inelegant dance producing superb comic moments as when he nuzzles her breast with his donkey head.

Puck was danced by Shaun Kelly with an untiring energy, his nimble dancing and mighty leaps providing a frenetic and outrageous performance.

The two pairs of mere mortal lovers in the form of some explorers – Kirby Seichow, Joseph Skelton, Abigail Boyle and Paul Mathews – provided a colourful series of inspired and inventive dances with energetic displays, superb timing and comic acting. Members of the corps de ballet as the fairies were more than just groups of flittering creatures, playing an integral part as symbols of love and affection. They moved about the stage like a living, pulsating cloud of tenderness, helping to create the sparkling and mysterious fairy world. Liam Scarlett’s creative and imaginative direction can be seen in the way he was able to integrate costumes, lighting and set in a miasma of silvery blue, which provided a real sense of a mythical fairy kingdom.

At the heart of the ballet is the music of Mendelssohn. The score by conductor Nigel Gaynor, which combines the composer's Midsummer Night’s Dream music with several other compositions, provides an evocative background to the ballet.

John Daly-Peoples has a relative on the board of the Royal New Zealand Ballet.