Our production of A Midsummer Night's Dream is very poetic. Director Neil Armfield and designer Dale Ferguson have left a lot of space for the theatrical aspects of this opera to breathe, with clarity and simplicity. A single, beautiful and ethereal major set piece has the ability to be interpreted different ways, creating moods with lighting and staging that seem to magically transform scene to scene.

What makes Neil such an effective director is how seriously he takes the work, and the passion with which he works to make it a great piece of theatre first and foremost, which is essential with an opera like this. An interesting thought to consider is, what is the relationship between the opera and our contemporary world? Shakespeare's Athens was unlike any Athens that ever existed. What might it be today? Who would Theseus and Hippolyta be? Who would the Rustics be? Some directors of this opera are nervous of playing up the humour of the Rustics in all its crudeness, but Neil is not afraid of that and so we find ourselves with a very witty production.