In Friday’s (1/10) Hartford Courant (Connecticut), Jeffrey Johnson reviews a recent performance of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream by the combined forces of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra and the Hartford Stage at Hartford’s Bushnell Center. Johnson writes that “one never gets the opportunity to hear the complete Incidental Music with the play, fully costumed and produced, which was Mendelssohn’s intention. Stage Director Darko Tresnjak’s … staging … was detailed and ever-inspired…. The orchestra was onstage with the actors and seemed part of the action.… The HSO’s Music Director Carolyn Kuan … kept the event leaning forward and made the transitions into accompanied passages subtle and clean. The horn solo in the nocturne was golden. The flute playing at the close of the Scherzo sizzled, and the clarinet solo sounded haunted in that most strange ‘Marcia Funebre’ in Act V. The palette also included lovely and resonant singing from Chorus Angelicus & Gaudeamus, and engaging soprano solos by Amanda Hall and Jamilyn Manning-White…. This event was a celebration of Hartford Stage’s 50th Anniversary and Hartford Symphony Orchestra’s 70th Anniversary.… Both undertook the significant effort of coordinating an effort of this magnitude. May this event bring new audiences to both organizations and may there be continued collaboration in the future.”
Posted January 15, 2014
