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THOMAS ADÈS

THE TEMPEST

CONTENTS

SYNOPSIS P.

OPERA IS LIKE PUBLIC SCULPTURE THOMAS ADÈS IN AN INTERVIEW P.

THE THEATRE AS A MAGIC TOOLBOX ROBERT LEPAGE IN AN INTERVIEW

RECONCILED AND HEALED AT LAST GAVIN PLUMLEY P.

DESPITE DIFFERENCES, VERY CLOSE TO SHAKESPEARE ANDREAS LÁNG P.

WHY DOES PROSPERO BREAK HIS STAFF? ADRIAN MOURBY

RICH AND STRANGE: THOMAS ADÈS’ TEMPEST ALEX ROSS

IMPRINT

THOMAS ADÈS

THE TEMPEST OPERA in three acts Libretto MEREDITH OAKES

Source The Tempest, by William Shakespeare

ORCHESTRA

3 flutes (2nd & 3rd doubling piccolo) 3 oboes (3rd doubling cor anglais) 3 clarinets (3rd doubling bass clarinet) 3 bassoons (3rd doubling contrabassoon) 4 horns / 3 trumpets 3 trombones (3rd doubling bass trombone) tuba / percussion / piano / harp violin I / violin II / viola / cello / double bass

WORLD PREMIÈRE 10 FEB 2004 Royal Opera House Covent Garden, London PREMIÈRE AT THE HOUSE ON THE RING 14 JUN 2015 DURATION

2 H 45 M

INCL. 1 INTERMISSION

ALEX ROSS

RICH AND STRANGE: THOMAS ADÈS’ TEMPEST I first heard the music of Thomas Adès on a gloomy spring day in Aldeburgh, England, in 1995. The composer was then twenty-four – a nervously confident youth who spoke in rumbling bass tones, like a very English Ving Rhames. The piece on display was Living Toys, which featured the sort of everywhere-scurrying, chaos-theory music that composers under the influence of György Ligeti were writing at the time. But I heard something else, too – an articulate melancholy, which gathered itself into brief, sobbing pleas. Through a maze of styles and moods, the work took listeners far into a private world. Here was a composer who seemed capable of anything. In the years that followed, Adès became famous, notorious, a bit overexposed – problems American composers only wish they had. His first opera, Powder Her Face, was celebrated not so

much for its razor-sharp characterisations as for its onstage blow job. His first big symphonic piece, Asyla, had a much discussed, much imitated scherzo movement depicting a druggy night at a London club. In 1999, he dumbfounded a New York Philharmonic audience with a monumentally grim cantata entitled America: A Prophecy, which contained the lines “Your cities will fall ... It is foretold / Prepare.” All the focus on the outré features of Adès’ works disguised the fact that they were tied together with fantastically ornate thematic designs, as if the composer were intent on dressing animal energies in impeccable clothes. Then came a period in which the new star of English music seemed uncertain of his direction. He had a commission from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and after stalling on one project he decided on short notice

RICH AND STRANGE: THOMAS ADÈS’ TEMPEST

to tackle another: Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Deadlines loomed, the score was not ready. A no longer worshipful British press hinted that a fiasco might be in the offing. There were reports that singers were complaining about the difficulty of their parts. Articles on the eve of the première characterised Adès as a purveyor of “facile cleverness” and “shallow sophistication” who had tried to do “too much too soon.”

How much is too soon? To adapt Tom Lehrer’s immortal line, when Schubert was Adès’ age he had been dead for a year. The Tempest is the opposite of a disappointment; it is a masterpiece of airy beauty and eerie power. As if on schedule, Adès, at thirty-two, is now the major artist that his earliest works promised he would become. Excerpt from an article from The New Yorker, published in March 2004.

Next pages: SCENE

WHY DOES PROSPERO BREAK HIS STAFF?

he peppers it bitterly with rebukes to her for not listening: “Dost thou attend me?” “Thou attend’st not.” “Dost thou hear?” Later still when Prospero obliges Ferdinand to carry logs to his cell, he is initially harsh to him. Even when he discovers the couple love each other – as he had hoped – and apologises for having punished Ferdinand “too austerely”, he still threatens him that if he deflowers Miranda before they are wed: “ No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall To make this contract grow: but barren hate, Sour-eyed disdain and discord shall bestrew The union of your bed with weeds so loathly That you shall hate it both: therefore take heed.” This is tantamount to a curse. However Prospero, who has seemed arbitrary and cantankerous for much of the play, does mellow as things begin to go his way. He has waited twelve years to be even with his enemies and now he finally has them at his mercy, he forgives them. While Prospero saves them from the sea, their preservation saves him. Given the opportunity for revenge Prospero declines it. Face to face with old Gonzalo he even weeps: “Holy Gonzalo, honourable man, Mine eyes, even sociable to the show of thine, Fall fellowly drops.”

And now at last he can contemplate the end of his life without bitterness: And thence retire me to my Milan, where every third thought shall be my grave. It is very tempting to find something autobiographical at the end of this play. Shakespeare the playwright is laying down his pen as Prospero lays down his staff. This view is strengthened by the fact that Shakespeare has, throughout The Tempest, shown Prospero behaving like a dramatist. He brings on characters and sends them from the stage; he conjures up effects, cues music and orchestrates events to bring about a happy ending. This interpretation is further strengthened by one of the few biographical details we know about Shakespeare. The Tempest (1611-1612) was the last play he wrote on his own. With that in mind it becomes increasingly apparent that we are watching a great conjurer who wants all to be well and to please his audience so he can finally lay down his pen. Standing on the empty stage and addressing that audience – rather than any of the characters we have been following – Prospero asks us to release him “ With the help of your good hands [our applause]. Gentle breath of yours my sails Must fill, or else my project fails, Which was to please.” If this was Shakespeare’s farewell to his audience he is indeed breaking his metaphorical staff. Sadly the play wright spoiled this dramatic gesture when he subsequently collaborated with John Fletcher on two lesser plays in his retirement, Henry VIII and Two Noble Kinsmen. But, as we all know, it can be hard to retire.

KS ADRIAN ERÖD as PROSPERO