The Merchant of Venice (opera) 2013. Keith Warner directed the production, which was also supported by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute and the Grand Theatre – National Opera, Warsaw. The opera libretto follows the plot of the original play very closely, generally using Shakespeare's own words. Many of the minor characters are excised. Act I introduces the melancholy merchant Antonio, his friend Bassanio who asks Antonio for money to back his wooing of Portia, the Jewish moneylender Shylock, his daughter Jessica and her Gentile lover, Lorenzo. Despite evident mutual personal animosity, Shylock agrees to lend Antonio 3000 ducats against the pledge of a pound of the
The Masque at Kenilworth and the ancient Greek poet Arion, who arrives astride a dolphin. A performance of the "summer night" scene from "The Merchant of Venice" is given, and then the Queen is sung lovingly to sleep. The "Merchant of Venice" scene is anachronistic, since Shakespeare was a young boy in 1575, but Chorley notes in his preface that Scott had also anachronistically used Shakespeare material. Chorley's effort was ridiculed as "trivial". In addition, Chorley faced much criticism over a misquote of "The Merchant of Venice" in No. 7, "Scene from "The Merchant of Venice"". Chorley's line reads: "Still quiring to the young-eyed