Thomas Adès: The Tempest

Thomas Ades (Composer), Royal Opera House Orchestra & Chorus (Orchestra), Kate Royal (Performer), Ian Bostridge (Performer), Simon Keenlyside (Performer), Toby Spence (Performer), Philip Langride (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Kate Royal, Ian Bostridge, Simon Keenlyside, Toby Spence, Philip Langride
• Orchestra: Royal Opera House Orchestra & Chorus
• Composer: Thomas Ades
• Audio CD (June 30, 2009)
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: EMI Classics
• ASIN: B0026FIR3E
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #90,499 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Oh so modern Shakespeare, August 7, 2009

By 

G P Padillo "paolo" (Portland, ME United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Thomas Adès: The Tempest (Audio CD)

Ades has composed some truly wonderful music, and while there are certainly beautiful solos for all of the cast members, it is in the ensembles that his true gift shows. The writing proved both passionate and compassionate, though I feared for Miss Seiden in her exposed relentlessly high tessitura a couple of times, but she was magnificent. The final scene had me smiling through tears - which is how I like my operas to end!

Ades score could not possibly more different - in every regard - from his breakthrough opera, "Powder Her Face" (which I love for entirely other reasons). I heard strong influences of Birtwistle (especially in the brass writing - some wonderful special note sliding effects that in and of itself adds an almost Shakespearean sound quality difficult to describe in words (but I know it when I hear it!).

I find just a bit of amusement in that while Ades is composing music of such lyrical beauty not too many decades ago, composers like Gian Carlo Menotti were berated and raked over the coals for producing scores that didn't sound "modern enough." Things do go in cycles, don't they.

During the world premiere of the work an intermission feature (which I wish were present in this recording as an "extra") I had to laugh as various members of the production team mentioned how there were no modern operatic versions of "The Tempest."

"Well, Germany produced a number of attempts . . . Mozart was interested in the libretto, but never lived long enough to be able to set it." Etc., etc.

I guess being on the other side of the pond, the English can be forgiven for not being aware of Lee Hoiby's glorious treatment of "The Tempest" which is enjoying a new lease on life and has recently been revived, and available in recording as well.

Mr. Ades was lucky in his cast - every role seemingly written for whomever went on to sing it. This is true nowhere more than in Simon Keenlyside's powerful turn as Prospero; it is an absolutely stunning performance. Ian Bostridge, a singer I never fully warmed up to in the past, was heartbreakingly and entirely believable as Caliban.

A wonderful effort and successful effort by all accounts and very highly recommended.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wish it were a DVD, but so memorable, January 16, 2010

By 

Paul Linkletter (New York City) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Thomas Adès: The Tempest (Audio CD)

The only thing wrong with this wonderful release is the fact that a video version exists and this is just audio. I saw a production in Santa Fe and was knocked over. Still, if you can only listen, this is the way to do it. From the first notes, the most noticeable thing about the music is how beautiful it is. Not the "new" Romantic safe let's-just-write-like-they-wrote-in-the-past kind of beautiful, but a modern use of Twentieth Century tonalities. Each Act has a definite shape, almost symphonic in its formal dimensions (you hear more of this the more often you listen to it.) But it seems flexible and mercurial and magical, like the play it derives from. No, it's not Shakespeare's verse. It's Meredith Oakes' rhymed verse BASED on Shakespeare. Once you stop trying to make it something it's not, you succumb and it's a joy to hear how the music fills out the libretto. It may not be genius, but the music makes its case because of it, not despite it. And what great music! Really. Lovely. Full. Rich. Complex, multi-layered (literally and figuratively.) Written for music lovers with knowledge and love of the past century. The performances could hardly be bettered. Simon Keenlyside is a Prospero of one's dreams. As my live experience made clear, this is not an easy sing. But you would never know it from Keenlyside's performance. And Cyndia Sieden as Ariel and Ian Bostridge as Caliban are his marvelous partners in magic. You hear this strange one-of-a-kind music and realize the technique required to sing it and you can only be amazed. Every role is cast like this. A "miracle" of casting that so infrequently happens, especially with such a large cast. Even the voices that are merely functional as sound are brought to musical life by great musicianship. Chorus and Orchestra of Covent Garden under the composer are magnificent. Such a pleasure. Buy this now.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A theatrical hit, but the libretto is doggeral and Ades's score hit and miss, April 18, 2010

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Santa Fe Listener (Santa Fe, NM USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Thomas Adès: The Tempest (Audio CD)

Ades's reputation had preceded him so fulsomely that I was drawn to attend the U.S. premiere of "The Tempest" in Santa Fe, which substantially duplicated the original cast at Covent Garden, and I later followed this up by attending a revival during the recent Ades festival in London. He is the cynosure of every eye, without a doubt, attracting the cream of London singers and musicians. On both occasions the audience seemed engrossed (admittedly, the Covent Garden ticket prices were at a special huge discount). The staging in both opera houses was strikingly hyper-modern, full of gimmicks, machinery, and color. Ades's talent for theatricality seems unstinting.

The opera has a tremendous deficit in Meredith Oakes's clumsy doggerel verse libretto, which makes matters worse by cribbing phrases from Shakespeare but otherwise wanders off on its own. In the same vein the Hamlet opera by Ambroise Thomas contained attractive music and a simulation of Shakespeare's plot line. That's not enough, and yet Ades relies essentially on the same strategy. Britten had the courage to set A Midsummer Night's Dream to the verse form which it cannot be severed, and The Tempest deserves the same respect. The gimmick of using a stratospheric coloratura for Ariel blotted out every word she sang, and Ian Bostridge's naked Caliban defies credibility -- has anyone ever thought that this drunken, anarchic child of nature was a lyric English tenor? It's painful to hear this great poetic creation whine, "You scorn me, you spite me, but you used to like me," to which Prospero banally replies, "Mind your place." Yipes.

All of the detriments made me impatient with the opera, but I made an effort to take the music on its own terms.
When embedded in a staged production, Ades's score works dramatically to paint vivid scenes. Even there, the effects are hit and miss. Propsero is given a strong line, both musically and dramatically. It's not exactly right to make him a bare-chested hunk, but oh well. Calibana's growling underpinnings in the orchestra are telling. On their own, shorn of stage action, many of Ades's musical inventions feel like time-filling, adept as they are. His great gift for orchestration never fails him. Even as the vocal line mindlessly jumps from interval to interval, the glittering accompaniments keep the ear entranced. I must say, however, that when heard nakedly, Ariel's high-flown lines are mostly irritating.

In the end, this was a theater piece as much as an opera. That's a good thing, of course, but it gets more dubious when the theatrical effects are more than half the achievement. I suppose we must consign Ades's "Tempest" to the same category as the operas of Philip glass, which are unlistenable off the stage. Ades's score isn't unlistenable. It contains many striking episodes, yet I wonder how many listeners are making it form beginning to end of this recording with undiminished delight?