George Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream carries Shakespeare’s comedy into an enchanted forest where mischievous fairies, bewitched lovers and bumbling mortals collide. Balanchine’s choreography turns the story’s romantic confusion and comic disorder into a luminous world of classical dance.

Felix Mendelssohn’s score supplies the production’s buoyant musical atmosphere, while Christian Lacroix’s dreamlike scenery and costumes—created for the Paris Opera Ballet—wrap the stage in color and fantasy. Jennifer Tipton’s lighting completes a joyful, transporting production for longtime ballet audiences and first-time dreamers alike.