Daniel Hathaway, Cleveland Classical

March 8, 2014

Pity any foolish composer who sets out today to write incidental music for Shakespeare’s wonderful comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.Mendelssohn’s already been there and done that with such imagination and sensitivity that no one else need apply (though Benjamin Britten turned the play into a successful opera). The very large audience at E.J. Thomas Hall in Akron on Saturday evening had the rare treat of hearing every note of Mendelssohn’s score interleaved with about two-thirds of Shakespeare’s words, when Christopher Wilkins led the Akron Symphony, the Akron Symphony Shakespeare Players, the Summit Choral Society Children’s Choir and Ballet Excel Ohio in an enchanted production of the Bard’s masterpiece staged by Craig Joseph. […continued]

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