A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

 

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM 

Singapore Symphony Orchestra 

Victoria Concert Hall 

Friday (25 October 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 28 October 2024 with the title "SSO gives Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's music a full-bodied staging".

This title was just half the story, as the Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s early Romantic programme led by music director Hans Graf might as well have been two separate concerts. The main event was the Singapore premiere of Felix Mendelssohn’s complete Incidental Music to William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 

Those familiar with its four-movement suite would find pleasure in this fleshed out edition with spoken verses by veteran Canadian stage actress Maureen Thomas and sung vocal parts. Every word was by the Bard himself, including a totally engaging Thomas playing the impish character of Puck and breaking the fourth wall to address the audience. 

Photo: Jack Yam

Shakespeare’s English is like a foreign language here, and one wondered whether the use of projected surtitles could have enhanced its appreciation. That would, however, have detracted from the theatre-like ambience deliberately created by dimmed lighting. 

Its Overture was a miracle of teenage precociousness, its themes to be reused in the ensuing twelve movements. Mercurial and full of vivacity, this continued into the feather-light Scherzo. The voices entered with You Spotted Snakes sung ever so sweetly by sopranos Kaitlyn Kim and Giselle Lim, with women from the Singapore Symphony Chorus and Youth Choir (choral director: Eudenice Palaruan) in support. 

Subtle horns and woodwinds distinguished the Nocturne, and everybody recognised that Wedding March, so overplayed at matrimonial services. The hee-haw motif representing Bottom’s asinine transformation lit up Dance of the Clowns, and the voices returned for the final blessing Through The House Give Glimmering Light. Puck’s disclaimer of an epilogue was cheekily delivered by Thomas but no apologies were needed, as this hour and a bit was well worth enjoying again. 

The concert opened with Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto in C minor (Op.37), performed by Argentine pianist Ingrid Fliter, last seen here at the 2022 Singapore International Piano Festival. The orchestra’s opening tutti pulled no punches, and Fliter’s entry was every bit its equal. Sweeping scales were delivered with brusque immediacy and rude health, without mincing of notes or lines. 

Photo: Jack Yam

Beethoven had crossed the threshold from from Classical sensibilities to Romantic ardour without looking back. A singing tone and melting lyricism were never far away, humanising this account which matched elegance with bravura. 

The first movement’s cadenza had the intended bluster, balanced by the lovingly voiced chorale melody of the ensuing Largo slow movement. These tender feelings would soon give way to the rollicking Rondo finale that followed without break. 

Fliter’s sharp accents delineated a highly rhythmic dance, clearly relishing its boisterousness yet impossible to waltz to at this speed and intensity. Storm and stress would however turned to joie de vivre for the last pages, which romped home in cheerful C major. 

Her far quieter encore, the Andantino slow movement from Robert Schumann’s Second Sonata in G minor (Op.22), like the concerto that preceded it, was a perfect synthesis of poetry and passion.

You can read the original review of this concert that was published on Bachtrack.com: Mendelssohn and Beethoven share Singapore Symphony’s game of two halves | Bachtrack