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The long stage life of A Midsummer Night's Dream as a leafy Victorian valentine, with all the traditions our era has so strained to be rid of, is all but gone—with few questions ever having been asked about its origins and development. That Victorian stage image of the play, still familiar to us, owes the most to the production of the remarkable Madame Lucia Elizabeth Vestris. Her A Midsummer Night's Dream opened on 16 November 1840, in the second of her three season management of Covent Garden with her new husband and lessee, Charles James Mathews. As well as restoring the text, for which Odell duly credited her, Vestris set many precedents in staging, casting, costuming, and music. Her production has never been studied in detail, either for itself or its considerable influence.

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