A Midsummer Night's Dream (Mendelssohn) Midsummer Night's Dream" in 1842, 16 years after he wrote the Overture. It was written to a commission from King Frederick William IV of Prussia. Mendelssohn was by then the music director of the King's Academy of the Arts and of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. A successful presentation of Sophocles' "Antigone" on 28 October 1841 at the New Palace in Potsdam, with music by Mendelssohn (Op. 55) led to the King asking him for more such music, to plays he especially enjoyed. "A Midsummer Night's Dream" was produced on 14 October 1843, also at Potsdam. The producer was Ludwig Tieck.
A Midsummer Night's Dream was John Dryden, writing in 1677. He was preoccupied with the question of whether fairies should be depicted in theatrical plays, since they did not exist. He concluded that poets should be allowed to depict things which do not exist but derive from popular belief. And fairies are of this sort, as are pigmies and the extraordinary effects of magick. Based on this reasoning, Dryden defended the merits of three fantasy plays: "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "The Tempest", and Ben Jonson's "Masque of Witches". Charles Gildon in the early 18th century recommended this play for its beautiful reflections, descriptions, similes,