incidental music

The closest thing, a staging of Mendelssohn’s incidental music to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” was canceled last minute for supposed scheduling difficulties.

Originally the concert was to include a staged performance by director Alberto Arvelo of Mendelssohn’s incidental music to “Midsummer’s Night Dream” with vocal soloists and the Los Angeles Master Chorale.

Franz Schubert, master melodist and progenitor of the song cycle, never wrote for the theater with success, producing scores for singspiels, operas and incidental music that collect dust on the shelf.

There have been many settings of “Hamlet,” from full operas, to overtures, to incidental music.

The evening opened with “The Consecration of the House,” an overture Beethoven wholly revised in 1822 from incidental music originally composed a decade earlier for August von Kotzebue’s play, “The Ruins of Athens.”