I guess cows are fickle. Or maybe they are multi-faceted and not only love opera singers and classical music, but are also into theatre.

They tasked their local Changeling Theatre Company to entertain the animals with quirky renditions of works by the 16th century playwright.

In fact parts of the humorous “The Merry Wives of Windsor play,” about a man’s seduction of two women, led to a significant increase in milk yields.

“We selected scenes from the play we felt to be lyrical and relaxing,” said the artistic director, Rob Forknall. “It started off as a rather a bizarre experiment after I was talking to a farmer about whether Shakespeare would have the same effect on cows as classical music.”

To their surprise, their theory indeed rang true and it was a win-win for all involved.

“Since then we’ve done several rehearsals with the cows,” said Forknall. “It saves us having to book rehearsal space and the farmer’s very pleased to get more milk.”

RTWT

Of course this is good in so many ways. Not only can classical musicians get gigs with the cows, but we could do something like, say, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Mendelssohn incidental music. Or perhaps The Tempest with Sibelius or Sullivan.

Ahhhh … sweet music!