Having so far managed to steer clear of the hype and marketing
furore which used to surround Thomas Adès, I have to admit at
the outset that I am probably less familiar with his work than
many of you reading this review. Does this disqualify me from
commenting? I hope not. Having thus plunged in at the deep end
with The Tempest, I can at least make an honest claim for
approaching both work and composer with fresh ears, and a mind
uncluttered, I hope, by prejudice or bias.
I did do a little
research, and was intrigued to read how this piece was not
particularly enjoyed in its 2004 production by Melanie Eskenazi
in her Seen and Heard review
elsewhere on this site. The 2007 production as recorded here
has many of the same cast members, and I can only imagine
that the roles must have matured through the intervening three
or so years. All of the singers give powerful performances,
with Cyndia Sieden’s remarkable high coloratura standing out
as intensely memorable. Such extremes of range are rarely
heard in such a sustained way, and here it is something of
a mixed blessing. Opera libretti are hard enough to understand
at the best of times, even with the tantalising feel that
one should at the very least be able to follow a text
in English. While the men’s parts can sometimes be understood
with a good deal of concentration the high soprano’s representation
of Ariel might as well be a vocalise, as the entire text is
lost in such passages as almost any kind of realistic articulation
at this range is humanly impossible. The only voice which
initially gives a mildly discomforting impression is counter-tenor
David Cordier’s Trinculo. This is more the result of a difference
in style, with his more ‘early music’ restraint in terms of
vibrato contrasting with the other singers’ more typical operatic
projection.
There is no reason
why an opera should follow any kind of pattern or tradition,
but it is worth knowing that there is little or nothing here
by way of a ‘big tune’: one or more arias or themes which
might be taken away and savoured in the memory. There are
some lovely moments though, and I feel Adès is at his best
when allowing himself time for reflection. After the tumult
and dissonance of the previous sections in Act I, Ariel’s
Five fathoms deep/your father lies is a welcome moment
of ethereal simplicity. Why Shakespeare’s text needed ‘improving’
at this point I am not sure, but I admire the way Adès avoids
turning this set-piece into a more conventional song. In so
doing he would have compromised the integrity of the score,
but by weighing anchor with such clearly Tippett-inspired
bell sounds he does show his hand somewhat in the eclectic
stakes.
Back into the
more typical fray of the first act, and to my ears, much of
the vocal writing sounds as if it is doing its best to get
through as much text as possible, without doing much of significance
to convey its emotional content. So much is sung with so little
rhythmic interest: wap, wap ,wap, wap; note, note, note, note.
I think this is one of the main reasons the singers have a
hard time creating convincing characterisations: there’s just
too much of the same kind of material for each voice. There
is some marvellous ensemble writing towards the end of Act
I, but without the libretto to hand it’s hard to know what
everyone is getting quite so passionate about. I’m sure it
must have worked well with the visual clues, but I’ll just
have to settle for having to follow the libretto while listening,
and wait for the DVD release meanwhile.
This is very much
a live recording, and while the audience noises are negligible
beyond a few coughs and the applause at the end of each act,
there is a fair amount of tramping about on stage. Act II
engages the listener with the dramatic exchanges between Sebastian,
Antonio and others. There is a moment of ‘League of Gentlemen’
mirth as Caliban enters in Scene Two and the chorus make rude
remarks: “A monster! A local!” Caliban’s ‘Friends don’t fear’
is Adès’s Michael Nyman tribute moment, the music pretty much
as on Nyman’s Débarcadère from La Traversée de Paris
right down to being in the same key. No doubt more erudite
readers will be able to tell us if or from where it was adapted
by Nyman. What I find a bit annoying about the setting later
on is the vertical nature of the writing. Huge amounts of
the words are connected directly to the orchestra beneath
which is fine for a while, but soon becomes rather heavy.
Imagine a recitative under each word-of-which-a-chooord-is-play’d.
Released from this device into another more reflective musical
atmosphere for a while, the King of Naples has another fine
moment with ‘My son is dead’, the strings being stroked gently
under his tender, grieving words. The lamenting Ferdinand
is given a similarly effective section in Scene Four, joined
later on in a lovely duet with Miranda. It’s a shame the audience
applause breaks into the final note at the end of disc 1,
no doubt prompted by the fall of the curtain.
There’s a ‘Raiders
of the Lost Ark’ cinematographic feel to some of Act III,
and I sense an almost too literal reflection of the text.
Marked incorrectly against the libretto in the booklet, the
music becomes more interesting at track 5 on disc 2, with
a creepily oriental feel topped with bells and a finely balanced
and beautifully intonated piccolo. Strikingly, John Williams
meets Martinů at 2:11 into this section. There is plenty
of dark psychological drama wrung out of the miserable situations
and murderous intent, with a growling ‘leitmotif’ progression
accompanying Prospero’s imprecations and prophesies. Here,
the contrast between his and Ariel’s flights are emphasised
most effectively in the orchestral colours, resulting in some
quite magical effects. The finale builds from Scene Four,
with a creeping pizzicato bass underlying the re-appearance
of the cast for a Mozartean ensemble, and Prospero wrapping
everything up with a typical absence of lightness and subtlety:
‘Now my work is at an end/I can mar and I can mend.’ Boom
boom. The happy ending is balanced with darker consequence,
and, hearing the final section as a kind of beautiful coda,
we are drawn back down from uncertain triumph into the loneliness
of Caliban and the grim mystery of the sea.
One of my ways
of becoming acquainted with new pieces is to download them
onto an MP3 player so I can listen to them while biking to
work. This meant first hearing The Tempest in 20-25
minute chunks, depending on the prevailing winds and traffic
lights. I did find that, like reading a good novel, I was
looking forward to encountering what came next rather than
hoping it would all be over sooner rather than later. Yes,
there are numerous things in the opera which I would consider
flaws: all those sequential chunks for a start, and the sometimes
rather stereotypical shapes and gestures which follow a libretto
of not always entirely even quality. This is a very impressive
and memorable piece however, albeit rather too close to the
sonorities, and traditions of Tippett and others to be given
many plus points in terms of absolute originality. It must
however be nearly impossible to create a new opera without
having folks like me pick at how it relates to other composers’
operatic work. I appreciate this grounding in well-tested
tradition as opposed to an attempt at avant-garde cleverness
for the sake of novelty. This is one of those pieces which
you can inhabit and wander around in. Powerfully performed
and given a very fine live recording, The Tempest creates
its own world and for this reason makes a forceful impression,
despite inviting several external ‘presences’ into its sphere.
Dominy Clements