The Tempest Mini-Review

Hi everyone,

I just re-read the New York Times Review of “The Tempest” and found it really interesting. Here is the link: http://www.nytimes.com/ 2012/10/25/arts/music/ an-inspired-and-personal-tempest-makes-met-debut.html

Like I said in class, I found the overall experience rather thrilling. When I was 8-9 years old, I was in a couple of operas produced by the Bronx Opera House Company that had child characters. I can’t remember the names of the operas I was in, but performing was an amazing experience because of two reasons: 1) I was able to perform on stage and 2) wear exotic costumes. After so many years of not performing, I felt a little nostalgic watching the actors on stage. Needless to say, they did a wonderful job.

On another note-although The Tempest essentially had the archetypical romance plot structure (boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, the couple can’t be together because of family feuds, etc.), I felt like it had such power and dynamism because of the music. The music was haunting and was full of subtleties: as Mr. Tommasini notes in his review, the music lends the opera a “ritualistic mystique” as it transitions from “skittish bursts and slashing dissonances” during emotionally-charged sequences to “wistful and plangent” scores during other scenes. In this way, I feel like going to the opera complemented our in-class discussion about artists being manipulators. Music, as an art form, is also a form of manipulation. It is no surprise that I was so impacted by the musical scores in this particular production of The Tempest.

Below are some photos I found on The New York Times website. Enjoy!