{"id":2944,"date":"2020-12-29T14:30:34","date_gmt":"2020-12-29T20:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anngumpperdesign.com\/?page_id=2944"},"modified":"2020-12-29T14:33:03","modified_gmt":"2020-12-29T20:33:03","slug":"a-midsummer-nights-dream-review","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/anngumpperdesign.com\/index.php\/a-midsummer-nights-dream-review\/","title":{"rendered":"A Midsummer Night&#8217;s Dream Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-page\" data-elementor-id=\"2944\" class=\"elementor elementor-2944\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-a200647 elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"a200647\" data-element_type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-e14e679\" data-id=\"e14e679\" data-element_type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-86c49f8 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"86c49f8\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div id=\"article-section-header\"><section><div id=\"article-header\"><div class=\"article-header-title\"><h1 class=\"article-headline\">Theater review: \u2018A Midsummer Night&#8217;s Dream\u2019 is as magical as ever<\/h1><div class=\"light-grey byline\">Written By:\u00a0<span id=\"noLink\" class=\"ttu\">Lawrance Bernabo, for the News Tribune<\/span>\u00a0|\u00a0<time class=\"timestamp\">Mar 28th 2014 &#8211; 11pm.<\/time><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section><\/div><div id=\"article-section-body\"><div id=\"top-social-share\"><div class=\"addthis_inline_share_toolbox\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.duluthnewstribune.com\/lifestyle\/2479468-theater-review-midsummer-nights-dream-magical-ever\" data-title=\"Theater review: \u2018A Midsummer Night's Dream\u2019 is as magical as ever | Duluth News Tribune\" data-description=\"The announcement of the Minnesota Ballet's revival of its 2011 production of &quot;A Midsummer Night's Dream,&quot; engendered two immediate responses. The first was that it would be an opportunity to see Reinhard von Rabenau again in his most memorable ro...\"><div id=\"atstbx\" class=\"at-resp-share-element at-style-responsive addthis-smartlayers addthis-animated at4-show\" role=\"region\" aria-labelledby=\"at-7cfc7805-e039-4294-8b7e-efe09f4e7536\"><span id=\"at-7cfc7805-e039-4294-8b7e-efe09f4e7536\" class=\"at4-visually-hidden\"><\/span><div class=\"at-share-btn-elements\">\u00a0<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"article-header-media\"><div class=\"image\"><div class=\"landscape \"><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"topMedia\" class=\" lazyloaded\" src=\"https:\/\/www.duluthnewstribune.com\/incoming\/article1585000.ece\/alternates\/BASE_LANDSCAPE\/Nick%20Bottom%20and%20Titania\" alt=\"Nikolaus Wourms (left), who plays Nick Bottom, and Emily Reed as Titania, perform in the Minnesota Ballet\u2019s production of \u201cA Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream\u201d for about 1,200 elementary students from 16 Duluth and Superior schools Thursday morning at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center. (Bob King \/ rking@duluthnews.com)\" width=\"\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.duluthnewstribune.com\/incoming\/article1585000.ece\/alternates\/BASE_LANDSCAPE\/Nick%20Bottom%20and%20Titania\" data-srcset=\"\" \/><\/div><div class=\"caption\">Nikolaus Wourms (left), who plays Nick Bottom, and Emily Reed as Titania, perform in the Minnesota Ballet\u2019s production of \u201cA Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream\u201d for about 1,200 elementary students from 16 Duluth and Superior schools Thursday morning at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center. (Bob King \/ rking@duluthnews.com)<\/div><\/div><\/div><div id=\"piano-inline-container\">\u00a0<\/div><div class=\"article-body\"><div class=\"main-body\"><div class=\"first-p\">\u00a0<\/div><div class=\"p402_premium\"><p>The announcement of the Minnesota Ballet\u2019s revival of its 2011 production of \u201cA Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream,\u201d engendered two immediate responses. The first was that it would be an opportunity to see Reinhard von Rabenau again in his most memorable role as the impish Puck.<br \/><br \/>The second was that the change in venue from UMD\u2019s Mainstage to the ballet\u2019s usual stomping ground at the DECC Symphony Hall would mean losing the charming intimacy that so many ballet patrons commented on last time.<br \/><br \/>Friday\u2019s opening night performance confirmed that Robin Goodfellow is indeed von Rabenau\u2019s most indelible role and that this show is absolutely magical wherever it is being staged.<br \/><br \/>The story comes from Shakespeare, and the music by Mendelssohn was primarily composed as incidental musical for a dramatic production of the play and not for a ballet. How Robert Gardner combines those two elements through his choreography into a complete ballet is quite impressive.<br \/><br \/>Structured similarly to \u201cThe Nutcracker,\u201d the conflicts play out in Act I and then, after a triple wedding during intermission, it is basically time to dance in Act II. This ballet\u2019s most unique element may well be that it offers four pairs of dancers.<br \/><br \/>That being said, after the war of love between Hippolyta (Catherine Wooten) and Theseus (Branden Reiners) in the prologue, there is very little dancing in the opening act between the couples that end up getting married. Oberon (Michael Agudelo) loves the non-responsive Titania (Emily Reed), but while he has his delightful dancing duel with Puck, she ends up with the donkey-headed Bottom (Nikolaus Wourms).<br \/><br \/>Oberon\u2019s plot to use a magic flower to cast a love spell on Titania goes astray &#8211; courtesy of Puck, of course &#8211; so that Helena (Suzie Baer) is being pursued by Lysander (Kevin James), the beau of best bud Hermia (Alana Gergerich), instead of by Demetrius (Marco Clemente), the one that Helena really loves but who has spurned her and who now loves Hermia.<br \/><br \/>The evening\u2019s highpoint comes in Scene II, when we meet the cast of characters, including the two cute little bugs (Katie Carlson and Julia Heytens) who follow Puck around. This is also when Ann Gumpper\u2019s sumptuous backdrop with its gossamer moon is revealed, along with the gorgeous costumes worn by the Fairies, all lit to perfection by Kenneth Pogin and played out to Mendelssohn\u2019s overture.<br \/><br \/>The night is replete with nice little touches, such as how Demetrius spins Helena several times into an embrace, which Lysander then does with Hermia off of a pirouette. Also, I think that audience would never tire of watching the rather unique way Puck has of running across that stage.<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Theater review: \u2018A Midsummer Night&#8217;s Dream\u2019 is as magical as ever Written By:\u00a0Lawrance Bernabo, for the News Tribune\u00a0|\u00a0Mar 28th 2014 &#8211; 11pm. \u00a0Nikolaus Wourms (left), who plays Nick Bottom, and Emily Reed as Titania, perform in the Minnesota Ballet\u2019s production of \u201cA Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream\u201d for about 1,200 elementary students from 16 Duluth and Superior [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2944","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anngumpperdesign.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anngumpperdesign.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anngumpperdesign.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anngumpperdesign.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anngumpperdesign.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2944"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/anngumpperdesign.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2946,"href":"https:\/\/anngumpperdesign.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2944\/revisions\/2946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anngumpperdesign.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}