A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Henry Mason, one of this country's most imaginative and witty young directors, has staged one of the most difficult comedies in the history of literature for his debut at the Salzburg Festival: Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream as a total work of art together with the famous incidental music by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Theseus has defeated the Amazon queen Hippolyta on the battlefield; now the wedding of the two is imminent. A father whose daughter loves the wrong man bursts into the hustle and bustle before the festivities.

Theseus is therefore to condemn the disobedient Hermia to death. The

Daughter, however, flees with her sweetheart, Lysander, into the forest at night, furiously pursued by Lysander's rival and his ex-girlfriend. The forest of desires is the place of unconscious alternatives. Here the characters act out what they cannot live out in everyday life.