Thomas Adès' 2004 version of The Tempest has been acclaimed as one of the outstanding operas of the new century, so it's a pleasure to have it available in such a fine recording, taken from the 2007 Covent Garden revival, featuring many of the principals from the premiere. Librettist Meredith Oakes has not only effectively distilled the play so that the opera lasts less than two hours without seeming overly condensed, but she has rewritten and simplified the text. Something is lost when Shakespeare's poetry is altered, but ...
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Thomas Adès' 2004 version of The Tempest has been acclaimed as one of the outstanding operas of the new century, so it's a pleasure to have it available in such a fine recording, taken from the 2007 Covent Garden revival, featuring many of the principals from the premiere. Librettist Meredith Oakes has not only effectively distilled the play so that the opera lasts less than two hours without seeming overly condensed, but she has rewritten and simplified the text. Something is lost when Shakespeare's poetry is altered, but Oakes' verse, if more mundane, is easily singable and easily comprehensible. The change in Shakespeare's language may be the biggest hurdle for purists, but for those who can make the leap and accept the libretto as an independent work of art, Oakes' version makes strong and coherent dramatic sense. Much has been made the spikiness of Adès' music in the first act, with the implication that it was only in the more lyrical second and third acts that he hit his stride and found an...
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