Le songe d'une nuit d'été (A Midsummer Night's Dream) is an opéra-comique in three acts composed by Ambroise Thomas to a French libretto by Joseph-Bernard Rosier and Adolphe de Leuven.
According to The New York Times reviewer in Paris, she acted "with rare discretion and dignity, and the wide scope of the register taxed by the composer is wonderfully served by her natural voice, in which the low tones are as full and reliable as the upper notes are easy, sweet, and flutelike.
Her perfect vocalization permits the wildest flights into the most elevated realm of stacatti and trill, while the many dramatic recitatives are just as well served by her sure instinct and by the homogeneous quality and range of her registers.
From the beginning to the end, even in the taxation of the cadenze of the second act, her full, rich tones were as sure, as melodious, as velvety, and as flexible as if she were not accomplishing almost impossible feats of execution.
"[5] The cast also included Victor Maurel as Shakespeare and the baritone Émile-Alexandre Taskin as "the stout, ponderous … Falstaff, and the extension of his voice permits him to give full value to the part originally written for a bass.
It was not well received by the critic of the Spirit of the Times (26 June 1852), who wrote: "Queen Elizabeth, Falstaff, and Shakespeare are introduced under the most ridiculous circumstances, and in absurd relations to each other.
We could forgive our Gallic friends for scandalizing Queen Bess and rendering fat Jack ridiculous, but to profane the memory of the sweet Swan of Avon by introducing his name into such balderdash is at once an insult to all who reverence him and an evidence that the French are wholly ignorant of his glorious works.
The park of Richmond Palace It is night; the waters of the lake, the moonlight shining through the branches of the trees, the general effect of a deep forest, all combine to confuse the senses of Shakespeare upon his awakening.