Thomas Adès: The Tempest: The Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House

(EMI)

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Of the “mere handful” of operas written by British composers in the past two decades, The Tempest by Thomas Adès is by far the “most substantial,” said Michael Church in the London Independent. The adaptation of Shakespeare’s late romance was first performed in 2004. In this 2007 recording, the composer himself conducts, and his cast is “as good as it gets.” Simon Keenlyside sings the part of Prospero, the banished sorcerer, with Ian Bostridge as Caliban and Cyndia Sieden taking on the “stratospherically high role” of Ariel. It is a “brilliant ensemble performance of a coruscating work.” This near-perfect production not only “confirms the beauty of Adès’ score” but also reveals his “apparently instinctive, natural feeling for the theater,” said Hugh Canning in the London Times. Although The Tempest is constructed as a traditional grand opera, it is the young composer’s “dazzling orchestral palette” that makes it such a joy. And Adès “conducts his magnum opus with thrilling authority.”

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