A Midsummer Night's Dream Mary Pickford's "Taming of the Shrew" in 1929. Rooney (Puck) and De Havilland (Hermia and Zara) reprised their roles from the Hollywood Bowl cast. James Cagney starred, in his only Shakespearean role, as Bottom. Other actors in the film who played Shakespearean roles just this once included Joe E. Brown and Dick Powell. Erich Wolfgang Korngold was brought from Austria to arrange Mendelssohn's music for the film. He not only used the "Midsummer Night's Dream" music but also several other pieces by Mendelssohn. Korngold went on to make a Hollywood career, remaining in the US after Nazi Germany annexed Austria.
Festive Overture (Shostakovich) Festive Overture (Shostakovich) The Festive Overture in A major, Op. 96, was written by Dmitri Shostakovich and premiered in 1954 at a concert held at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow to commemorate the 37th anniversary of the October Revolution (which took place in 1917). The Bolshoi's conductor, Vassili Nebolsin, found himself without a suitable new work to open the concert, and contacted Shostakovich just days before. The composer set to work on the overture with great speed, completing it in three days. He apparently based it on Glinka's "Ruslan and Ludmilla" overture (1842), and it features the same lively tempo