The Metropolitan Opera House is currently staging the William Shakespeare piece "The Tempest," which is being interpreted by director Robert Lepage who once said.
"It's a very refined piece, and it's like a 'best of' of all Shakespearean works. You get tragedy, you get comedy, you get fantasy. The poetry of The Tempest is conveyed in such a simple, economical manner. It's a very simple, strong, bewitching piece.
Thomas Ades is the composer for this Shakespearean piece and he opened up about the course he that has led down him to the play.
When asked by the Met what was his inspiration to create an opera about the play he said.
"I'd been toying with several different subjects, none of which had quite come to fruition. And then, in the middle of the night, I woke up and thought, perhaps I could do The Tempest. Then I immediately thought, "No you couldn't," but it was already too late. The idea was there, and there was no going back. The play is famously full of references to music, and the intangibility of some of its characters has always inspired music."
"The Tempest," has elements of magic and the chief spell caster is a character called "Prospero," Ades was asked how does "Prospero,'s" magic relate to his emotional state he said.
"In a way, all of his music represents aspects of one unity. The storm at the beginning is his interior torture and pain, his twistedness and anger about having his life stolen from him, projected into nature and into the music."
He went on to say." Once those emotions have played out and he sees the effect they have had on these people, the music is almost like the sea or a surface of water-it becomes calmer, not just in the activity, but also in the way the harmony works. The magic I think of as more to do with the way positive or negative emotions can act on the elements around one, and also on other people, not as an "abracadabra" kind of magic."
When speaking on how it was to work with director Lepage and what he brings to the opera he said.
"He's very clear on what you'd call the human drama of it and the way he articulates it. And of course he has that mastery of theatrical illusion. I love that he's set it in an opera house. It seems to me a very appropriate response to the opera-and so beautiful. It makes you aware of the theatricality that an opera unpacks from a play like this."
The play that the New York Times called "one of the most inspired, audacious and personal operas to have come along in years," has two more shows at the Met first of which is on Nov.14 and the final show is being staged on Nov. 17.
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