Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream has inspired masterpieces from two of the 20th century’s most important choreographers. This is the second DVD of Balanchine’s version, while Frederick Ashton’s Dream has been filmed only once. Most unusually, neither work has been filmed by the company with which it and the choreographer have indissoluble links. Balanchine has taken the Mendelssohn score in its entirety and used other music by the composer to fill out the ballet. None of the pieces is chopped up but somehow he found the way to tell us the story with clarity, dispatching the details in the first act. The second act is devoted to the wedding celebrations with a return at the end to show us the reconciliation of Titania and Oberon and Puck delivering his epilogue. The Scala forces include such stars as Alessandra Ferri (also Titania in the DVD of the Ashton) and Roberto Bolle, who inhabit their roles of Titania and Oberon while tossing off the difficulties of the choreography. Riccardo Massimi’s Puck is a worthy foil to his master Oberon, cavorting nonstop when he is on stage. The lovers and Bottom and his companions contribute with verve to the storytelling. Marta Romagna and Mick Zeni give the pas de deux in act II an élan, further enhanced when the three marital couples join in the final section. (Based on ArkivMusic)