Felix Mendelssohn Melusine (Die schöne Melusine)" (1830). A contemporary writer considered these works as "perhaps the most beautiful overtures that, so far, we Germans possess". Mendelssohn also wrote in 1839 an overture to "Ruy Blas", commissioned for a charity performance of Victor Hugo's drama (which the composer hated) His incidental music to "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (Op. 61), including the well-known Wedding March, was written in 1843, seventeen years after the Overture. The Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64 (1844), was written for Ferdinand David. David, who had worked closely with Mendelssohn during the piece's preparation, gave the premiere of the
A Midsummer Night's Dream (opera) herself completely dominated by Oberon and Puck, the couple that are usually considered to really hold power in The Dream. Their cruel pranks eventually quell her coloratura, which until she is freed from the power of the love-juice is fiendishly difficult to sing. Britten also parodied operatic convention in less obvious ways than "Pyramus and Thisbe". Like many other operas, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" opens with a chorus, but it is a chorus of unbroken boys' voices, singing in unison. After this comes the entrance of the prima donna and the male lead, who is as far away as possible