Neumeier's dance version of the Shakespeare play about the trials and tribulations of love has lost none of its freshnes | dG1fLUp2Wlg0UEhDYXc
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00:00Love swoops down like a hawk.
00:02In the heat of the midsummer night,
00:04the world engrosses in a wild love dream.
00:08For the lovers, reality blurs into an absurd spectacle.
00:14John Neumeier's dance rendition of William Shakespeare's
00:18A Midsummer Night's Dream is one of his most successful ballets.
00:22Since its premiere in 1977,
00:25the ballet has been performed over 300 times in Hamburg
00:29and on tour worldwide.
00:33For the opening of the 2019-2020 season,
00:37A Midsummer Night's Dream returned to the stage of the Hamburg State Opera.
00:42Wedding bells are ringing at the court of the Duchy of Athens.
00:46Duke Theseus has conquered his bride Hippolyta at war
00:49and wishes to marry the defeated.
00:52But the royal household is ensnared in a complex netting of seduction,
00:56jealousy and unfulfilled love.
01:01The night before the wedding, the bride falls asleep in deep thought
01:05and dreams herself into a kingdom of fairies.
01:09There, however, the entanglements become even more complicated.
01:16In his version of A Midsummer Night's Dream,
01:19John Neumeier interprets the events as a dream of dance.
01:23The chief choreographer and artistic director of the Hamburg ballet
01:27separates the three levels of action from each other,
01:30musically and choreographically,
01:32and creates an own vocabulary of movement for each level.
01:54MUSIC PLAYS
02:01The linking element is Hippolyta's dream.
02:04The world of fairies provides a contrast to the world of court.
02:08In this dreamy ambience, one thing becomes very obvious,
02:12which would never be outspoken in the conscious level,
02:15the animalistic and uncontrolled eroticism.
02:20MUSIC CONTINUES
02:22A third level of action is the stoutly funny world of the craftsmen.
02:26In honour of the wedding at court,
02:28a group of handymen wants to perform the deeply tragic comedy of Pyramus and Thisbe.
02:34In order to rehearse without being disturbed,
02:37they too retreat to the woods of the fairies,
02:40and thanks to a magic love spell are drawn into the steamy events.
02:50From John Neumeier's point of view,
02:52all levels of action that deal with trials and tribulations of love
02:56bundle into one all-embracing topic,
03:00the mystery of human love in its thousand touching, erotic and comic manifestations.