Wexford Festival: The Little Midsummer Night’s Dream

The Grain Store at Stonebridge, Wexford, 24/10/2025

Christopher Knopp (Music Director, piano); Adam McDonagh (countertenor); Laura Aherne (soprano); Rory Lynch (tenor); David Kennedy (baritone); Joshua McCullough (bass-baritone); Amy Hewitt (soprano); Valeriia Gorbunova (mezzo-soprano); Rory Musgrave (baritone); Peter McCamley (actor).

The Factory Opera at this year’s Wexford Festival was director Heather Hadrill’s adaptation of Benjamin Britten’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’.  I caught the performance of 24th October.  The Grain Store was again the venue, its pillars disguised as mossy tree-trunks decorated with fairy lights.  The space was lit and arranged to evoke the mysterious magical heart of the greenwood.  The singing principals were either current or former members of the Wexford Factory programme, which offers professional and financial support to young singers, pianists and stage managers in the early stage of their careers.  The fairies, non-singing rude mechanicals and other roles were composed of local community participants.  Wexford-based multi-talented actor Peter McCamley was Puck.  Canadian pianist Christopher Knopp was the Music Director and played the piano reduction of the score.  An excellent but uncredited flautist accompanied ‘Thisbe’s Lament’ in the play-within-a-play at the end (as in Britten’s score).  Multi-talented Wexford native and resident Heather Hadrill directed.  The stunning costume design was by the equally versatile Frances White.  Movement Director Elizabeth Drwal coaxed quasi-professional stagecraft from the community participants, which included mingling with the audience, making an already immersive experience even more so.  As the duration of this production weighs in at about two-thirds of the original, the ‘Little’ in the title inevitably means cuts, about which more later.  As customary for Factory productions in The Grain Store, audience and performers traipse downstairs for the last part, the ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’ parody in this case.

Irish countertenor, repetiteur and conductor Adam McDonagh was a regal, impatient and louchely mischievous Oberon, with a mellifluous voice that did full justice to Britten’s carefully crafted vocal role.  The double-act with Peter McCamley’s obsequiously obliging and enthusiastic (but fundamentally incompetent) Puck was the stuff of finely-honed comedy.  Irish soprano Laura Aherne, now with Irish National Opera, was a majestic, maternal, matronly and sympathetic Tytania, implacable to Oberon’s impatience, gentle with her own fairies, tenderly affectionate under the influence of the enchanted eyedrops to the hapless Bottom, all the while floating vocally over the other textures with exquisite lightness and perfect coloratura.  The final reconciliation of Oberon and Tytania has beautiful music and it was exquisitely performed.  The impressive crowns of the fairy royals were made by Alison White, a freelance stage manager.

Irish tenor (both soloist and chorister, including formerly of the Choral Scholars of University College Dublin, my alma mater) Rory Lynch was a charismatic Lysander, planning to elope with Hermia, but prey to Puck’s bungling, ends up pursuing Helena.  He met all Britten’s challenges admirably.  A noble but ultimately bewildered Demetrius was sung by Irish baritone (on his second year at Irish National Opera Studio also) David Kennedy, promised to Hermia and pursued unrequitedly by Helena.  Oberon’s plans to sort this with a ‘love-at-first-sight’ potion are spectacularly bungled by Puck.  A fine baritone voice balancing power with sensitive blending.  Russian mezzo-soprano Valeriia Gorbunova was an aristocratic Hermia, entirely unfazed to be the object of two men’s affections at the start, bewildered when they are both switched to Helena.  A terrific stage presence with fabulously rich mezzo tone.  Irish coloratura soprano Ami Hewitt was a steadfast Helena, unwavering in her affection for Demetrius,  But when the two men are pursuing her, she is convinced that she is the butt of a cruel and elaborate practical joke concocted by the other three, with Hermia as the author.  My favourite scene in both the play and the opera, when she becomes convinced that every word of diminutive connotation spoken by the taller Hermia is a gibe at her own stature, was sadly one of those cut.  But we did get some of her rant, and it was excellent.  

Long-suffering, patient but assertive producer, director and playwright of the utterly dreadful ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’, Peter Quince, was played by Scottish  bass-baritone Joshua McCullough.  It has been my pleasure to review his performances in RCS MMus Opera productions over the last , notably Sarastro in ‘Die Zauberflöte’,  Neptune  in ‘Idomeneo’ and Le Roi in ‘Cendrillon’.  He was a genial Quince and any time I need help with herding cats, I know who to ask.  A tall stage presence certainly helps (sorry, Helena, we short persons must stick together).  Everybody’s favourite mechanical, the hapless Bottom, given the head of a donkey by Puck to be the plaything of the drugged Tytania, at Oberon’s behest to teach her a lesson, was played by Irish baritone Rory Musgrave, also Ulysses in ‘Deidamia’ this year, Dulcamara in last year’s Factory Opera, ‘The Elixir of Love’ at the same venue, and Graziano in ‘Le maschere’.  A super strong voice with always colourful characterisations.  His coated wire-frame donkey head was fashioned by sculptor and set designer Andrew Clancy.

Mercifully, perhaps, the scissors were wielded on almost all of ’Pyramus and Thisbe’  The ‘characters’ of Wall, Moon and Lion were introduced but not played.  Instead, we had brief revelry with audience participation in maypole dancing, a farewell from Theseus and Hippolyta, a final valediction from the fairies and, of course, Puck’s last words

This was an extremely enjoyable, immersive, surreal experience, with a fertile fusion of community and professional music-making and artistry with no compromise on quality.  Full marks from me.