Composers and their stage works 

St. John's Night

(Sancthansnatten)

Henrik Ibsen - 1853.

Three-act prose comedy (with a verse prologue) that has scenes and situations reminiscent of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Julian Poulsen and Johannes Birk, students from Christiania, accompany Jørgen Kvist on a visit to the farm of his aunt Mrs. Berg in Telemark. Johannes is secretly engaged to Mrs. Berg's daughter Juliane but finds himself drawn to her stepdaughter Anne, who is believed to be simpleminded. After a midsummer night's adventure at a fairy mound in the woods, the lovers change partners, the self-inflated nationalist Julian pairing off with the flighty, literal-minded Juliane, whereas the imaginative Johannes and Anne, in their engagement, affirm the superior reality of those who see poetry as truth.