The Tempest

The Tempest is an opera by English composer Thomas Adès with a libretto in English by Meredith Oakes based on the play, The Tempest by William Shakespeare. Following the success of Powder Her Face, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden commissioned a new opera from Adès in the late 1990s. Working with a librettist, a poetic version of the Jonestown Massacre of 1978 was prepared, but the composer found it impossible to set it to music. Finally, the... more

The Tempest is an opera by English composer Thomas Adès with a libretto in English by Meredith Oakes based on the play, The Tempest by William Shakespeare. Following the success of Powder Her Face, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden commissioned a new opera from Adès in the late 1990s. Working with a librettist, a poetic version of the Jonestown Massacre of 1978 was prepared, but the composer found it impossible to set it to music. Finally, the libretto he needed emerged from a collaboration with Meredith Oakes. The new opera became a co-production with the Copenhagen Opera House and the Opéra National du Rhin in Strasbourg, France. The Tempest received its world premiere to critical acclaim at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London on 10 February 2004. Other productions followed in Strasbourg and Copenhagen later in 2005 and the opera was given its US premiere staging by the Santa Fe Opera on 29 July 2006. Covent Garden revived the opera in March 2007 with the same... less