Met Tempest available on iPlayer (Listen Again), but ...

[Bryn]

... only in mono, and with a high frequency cut-off at 11.025kHz, i.e. no HD Sound, just the lowest of the low definition (to go with the doggerel text adaptation?).

The same situation obtains re. the edition of Between the Ears which followed Opera on 3.

However, Hear and Now is available in HD Sound.

[DracoM]

Not about the sound spectrum, but I dropped in and out of this 'opera' during the evening and was serially flabbergasted at the sheer arrogance of anyone claiming to set Shakespeare's arguably most elusive but most wonderful play in limping bits of - as memorably said above - 'doggerel'.

Erm......I love new musics of various kinds, but the unfunny, unmagical, unlovable Ades 'Tempest'............? Crikey.

[Resurrection Man]

... only in mono, and with a high frequency cut-off at 11.025kHz, i.e. no HD Sound, just the lowest of the low definition (to go with the doggerel text adaptation?).

The same situation obtains re. the edition of Between the Ears which followed Opera on 3.

However, Hear and Now is available in HD Sound.

Having dipped in and out, they could have improved it by dropping the high-frequency cut-off down to around 1kHz and applying a bass-frequency cut-off at around 1.1kHz.

[Bryn]

... only in mono, and with a high frequency cut-off at 11.025kHz, i.e. no HD Sound, just the lowest of the low definition (to go with the doggerel text adaptation?).

The same situation obtains re. the edition of Between the Ears which followed Opera on 3.

However, Hear and Now is available in HD Sound.

Hmm, since I posted that last night the situation has changed for the better (as far as the audio quality is concerned, that is). Both Opera in 3 and Between the Ears have now been made available in stereo HD Sound via the iPlayer's Listen Again facility.

[Mary Chambers]

I saw this opera when it was new, and quite enjoyed much (not all) of the music, but absolutely agree about the 'doggerel'. I didn't think the squeaky Ariel worked very well - too like a party trick.

[DracoM]

You entitle your opera 'The Tempest', but on closer inspection, the libretto is...........not quite what you'd expected / hoped. Oh dear.

[Flosshilde]

But then, how closely did Verdi stick to Shakespeare's text for his operas? Piave's text [for 'Macbeth'] was based on a prose translation by Carlo Rusconi that had been published in Turin in 1838. Verdi did not encounter Shakespeare's original work until after the first performance of the opera (Wikipedia).

The opera The Tempest is inspired by Shakespeare’s play, rather than literally being based on every aspect of it. There are key images from the play as well as new material. From among the play’s many themes and possible interpretations, the opera focusses on the difficulty, and the necessity, of mercy. The libretto uses contemporary vocabulary. Its lines are short, rhythmic and rhymed or semi-rhymed, echoing Shakespeare’s strophic songs more than his blank verse. (from Thomas Ades' website)

[DracoM]

'Based on' - OK, then how can you then call it 'The Tempest'? Erm...trade description etc? And how closely is it 'based on'?

And Ades does NOT have to use a translation of the Shak original.

I'm not in any way asking the guy to set every word, of course not. Impossible. But you'd think that maybe some of the major speeches / decent snatches of them etc might get a look in?

[Mary Chambers]

Is Britten's Midsummer Night's Dream the only Shakespeare opera to use the original words (albeit cut)? It works very well. As far as I'm concerned, the joy of Shakepeare is always the language rather than the plot, and I think that is very much the case with The Tempest.

[Flosshilde]

'Based on' - OK, then how can you then call it 'The Tempest'? Erm...trade description etc? And how closely is it 'based on'?

I think you are nitpicking. & I think you are not seeing the point about the Verdi Shakespeare operas - Macbeth uses a libretto in Italian based on a prose translation of Shakespeare - which is getting a fair distance from the original. In Otello he inserted a monologue for Iago (the Credo) which did not exist in Shakespeare, because it suited his dramatic purpose. Other composers produced operas on the same subject as some Shakespeare plays, but conflated characters, missed others out, & generally chopped things about to suit their purpose.

Berlioz was an ardent Shakespearephile - but even he wrote his own libretto for Beatrix and Benedict