John Gaston as Oberon. Photo by Carol Rosegg

At Manhattan School of Music’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Benjamin Britten’s opera after Shakespeare, on December 10, conductor David Gilbert, director Dona D. Vaughn, set designer Raul Abrego, and the singers, musicians, and the rest conspired to create an enchanting evening in fairy land and forest. It could easily have been billed as the school’s answer to the “Nutcrackers,” “Messiahs,” “Hansel und Gretels” and “Amahls” that generally mark the holiday season. The whole effort, set amidst columns of flowers and lights, flowery bowers, and oversized magic mushroom and poppies, did not cease to charm and the rustics’ play-within-the-play, “Pyramus and Thisbe,” a parody of bel canto opera, staged by Vaughn with no holds barred, was as side-splitting as one would want.

Two performers in particular stood out in a generally high-level cast. John Gaston made a regal Oberon, King of the Fairies, garbed in glittery armor and purple-and-black opalescent cape and singing in a smooth, seamless liquid countertenor. Bass Charles Temkey was a scene-stealing, buffo Bottom and he and soprano Hadley Combs, as Fairy Queen Tytania, reveled in the amorous scene following his transformation into an ass. Mention must also be made of tenor Trey Cassels’ Flute, dismayed when he first realized he would be playing a woman, Thisbe, in the rustics’ performance, but soon warming to his assignment.

Costumer Austin K. Sanderson dressed the fairies in Tytania’s train in a riot of rainbow colors, with the only male, countertenor David Korn as Cobweb, sporting a spiky green Mohawk and black harness and chaps. Oberon’s faithful and athletic Puck, baritone Adam Alexander in a speaking part, also boasted a punk look. The mortals wore contemporary attire. Lysander (tenor Christian Reinert, less than comfortable in his music) and Demetrius (baritone Brandon Poor) were in beige leisure suits and Hermia (mezzo-soprano Sarah Heltzel) and Helena (soprano Emily Ford Dirks) in filmy variations on Victoria’s Secret slips. The rustics, bumbling and shuffling, wore work clothes. If some of the production team’s decisions raised questions in light of the text—Bottom addressed fairies, clearly female, as “ sir” and “mounsieur” and Puck spoke of Lysander’s “ weeds [clothes] of Athens,” which were nothing of the kind—the discrepancies were noticed, but not jarring.

Hadley Combs, Charles Temkey & Ji-Young Yang. Photo by Carol Rosegg

Isaac Greer, Michael Anthony McGee, Christopher Clayton and Edwin Cahill were the remaining “rude mechanicals,” Ji-Young Yang, Vivian Krich-Brinton and Victoria Baker the other solo fairies, and Kwang-Mo Goo and Sarah Langbein, Duke Theseus and his Amazon bride, Hippolyta. Lighting designer Jane Cox, Jennifer Mooney, responsible for wigs and makeup, and choreographer Francis Patrelle helped create the magic.

Manhattan School of Music 120 Claremont Avenue

December 10 & 12 at 8 pm, 14 at 2:30 pm