Otherness and Strange Sounds

Abstract

This chapter examines how modern composers have developed a new approach to Shakespeare’s The Tempest by adopting creative approaches decidedly different from romantic interpretations or bel canto opera. Most twentieth-century musicalizations of the play—which is characterized by multidimensional, meta-poetical, and psychological intensity—present an experimental view of its structural potential and an intense exploration of the psychological dimensions of the personae. At the beginning of the twentieth century, a romantic opera by Nicholas Gatty (1920) still corresponds to nineteenth-century tastes. In contrast, Sibelius’s suite Stormen (1926) clearly reflects a modernist design, with harps and percussion representing the ambivalent character of Prospero, while the impressive chorus of winds and the intermittent sounds depicting Ariel underline the experimental and avant-garde nature of the composition. Since the second half of the century, composers’ efforts in adapting Shakespeare’s late comedy in stage music and opera have culminated in a series of notable works: Frank Martin’s Der Sturm (1956), Michael Tippett’s The Knot Garden (1971), Luciano Berio’s Un Re in Ascolto (1984), John Eaton’s The Tempest (1985), and Thomas Adès’s The Tempest (2004). This chapter compares these different operatic adaptations according to their poetical and musical devices, designs, and overall perspectives. What these very different compositions have in common is the fact that they no longer intend to provide musical settings for a Shakespearean play. Instead, they create their own works of art which (even in the wording of their libretti) are but loosely connected to the original version of their source.