Reading the Fairies

Between 1850 and 1920, readings of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream by women took place in conjunction with concerts of Felix Mendelssohn’s incidental music, popularized by actress Fanny Kemble. The practice responsed to criticism of the physicality of theatrical stagings and the ability of Mendelssohn’s music to depict extramusical content. Female elocutionists were considered ideal performers due to the depiction of fairies as female and in order to render Shakespeare’s pure poetry stripped of theatrical excess. The combination of Shakespeare and Mendelssohn represented the highest level of elocutionary art. In reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream, elocutionists became more voice than body, and the fairy elements were transmitted through Mendelssohn’s magical music, mediating the problem of the female body displayed on the stage.