Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
Simon Keenlyside, left, as Prospero and Isabel Leonard as Miranda in "The Tempest" at the Metropolitan Opera. More Photos »
Getting a new opera to take hold is always hard. There are many stories of new works that were introduced by an opera company — maybe two or three companies, if the project is a joint commission — only to languish afterward, even when the public and critical reception was encouraging.
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Then there is “The Tempest,” the composer Thomas Adès’s adaptation of the Shakespeare play, which had its premiere at the Royal Opera at Covent Garden in London in 2004. Since then, in just eight years, there have been another four productions,
almost unheard-of success for an unabashedly contemporary opera. The
Metropolitan Opera introduced its production, directed by Robert Lepage, on Tuesday night, with Mr. Adès conducting, in his Met debut. (This co-production had its premiere at the Festival d’Opéra de Québec in July.)
At its London premiere I thought “The Tempest” one of the most inspired,
audacious and personal operas to have come along in years. I feel this
even more strongly after the Met’s fantastical production, which offers a
superb cast, headed by the charismatic baritone Simon Keenlyside in the
role he created in London:
Prospero, the former duke of Milan, who has been stranded for 12 years
on a remote island, his throne having been usurped by his brother,
Antonio.
I still have some trouble with the libretto by Meredith Oakes, in which
Shakespeare’s poetry is streamlined and refashioned into rhymed couplets
for the most part. The constant succession of couplets can grow a
little numbing, especially since Ms. Oakes uses so many false rhymes.
(“Spare us your excuses/They’re quite useless.”) But the text gives
shape to Shakespeare’s wondrously confounding play and stays out of Mr.
Adès’s way. The main reason “The Tempest” has such power is its music.
Now 41, Mr. Adès was only 32 when he conducted the premiere of the opera
in London. He had been writing wildly diverse works, including his
brash chamber opera “Powder Her Face,” about the scandalous sexual
exploits of Margaret, duchess of Argyll. For “The Tempest” he fashioned a
language that on its surface may seem seductively tonal. But at every
moment all sorts of complex, subtle things are going on in this music.
The opera opens with a fitful depiction of the storm at sea, driven by
skittish bursts and slashing dissonances. When the storm calms, we meet
Miranda, Prospero’s daughter, here the lovely, vocally warm and
sympathetic mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard. Miranda is horrified to
witness what she thinks is the drowning at sea of dozens of innocent
people from a sinking ship close to shore. Naturally she suspects that
her moody, vengeful father is responsible for the shipwreck.
In this scene Mr. Adès introduces a technique of text setting that he
uses repeatedly. Every word of the libretto is supported or enshrouded
by a chord somewhere in the orchestra, so that almost every vocal line
becomes a mysterious chorale. When Miranda confesses her fears and
confusion, the chords buffeting her words are wistful and plangent. When
Prospero becomes agitated, the chords are sharp and pungent. Mr. Adès
employs this device almost obsessively. But it lends a ritualistic
mystique to this ultimately humane opera.
This is just one of the uncompromising choices Mr. Adès makes in the
score. The role of the spirit Ariel is written for a coloratura soprano
singing in a stratospheric range, here the physically and vocally agile
Audrey Luna. This punishing part should probably never have been
written. With her radiant voice flitting about in super-high fidgety
bursts, Ms. Luna can hardly make a single word clear. It doesn’t matter.
Mr. Adès’s Ariel is a dazzling creation, and Ms. Luna conquers the
role.
Mr. Lepage, the director, is best known to Met audiences for his hotly debated production of Wagner’s “Ring” cycle.
His concept for “The Tempest” is that Prospero envisions himself as an
impresario of 18th-century opera. On the island Prospero has recreated
La Scala, the opera house from his hometown, Milan. In this house
(whether real or metaphorical it’s hard to say) Prospero manipulates
people like the director of an opera production.
The concept is heavy-handed and skirts cliché. Still, the idea has
resonance, and Jasmine Catudal’s sets are alluring and inventive. Mr.
Lepage, who loves to create theatrical illusion, pulls off some striking
effects. During the opening storm scene we see Ariel (actually a body
double) hoisted on a chandelier and caught in a dizzying spin. A
sea-blue fabric covers the stage, and popping through it are drowning
victims of the storm and shipwreck.
Kym Barrett, the costume designer, presents Prospero as a tattooed wild
man with a disheveled military cape slung over one shoulder. It is easy
to imagine that Prospero, stranded on this strange island, has gone a
little weird. Mr. Keenlyside is such a grave, volatile and vocally
chilling Prospero that he would have looked convincing in anything. But
Ariel’s sequined skintight costume is too Las Vegas gaudy for me.
Soon after they meet, Miranda and Ferdinand, the son of the King of
Naples, sung by the appealing, sweet-voiced tenor Alek Shrader in his
Met debut, fall in love, even though their fathers are enemies. At the
end of Act II they wander through a forest to the seashore, vividly
evoked through video imagery. Suddenly there is a glimpse of a more
natural approach Mr. Lepage could have taken to “The Tempest,” one that
brought the island to life instead of turning Prospero into the
all-powerful general manager of a fantasy opera house.
Mr. Adès has written a work with challenging roles for singers to
relish. The tenor Toby Spence is a wily, unctuous Antonio. There is both
anguish and elegance in the singing of the tenor William Burden as the
King of Naples, who believes his son has drowned. And among other
standouts the tenor Alan Oke was wonderful as the shaggy-haired,
monsterlike, spiteful Caliban, who was to have ruled the island but is
kept in servitude by the magic of Prospero.
During a final scene of reconciliation Prospero relinquishes his magical
powers, blesses his daughter’s marriage and starts the uneasy process
of forgiving his brother. The music is a passacaglia, an old dance in
variation form, here rendered with lacy lyrical writing and ethereal
harmonies by the multiskilled Mr. Adès, who, by the way, drew a
textured, glittering and suspenseful account of his opera from the great
Met orchestra.
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