Contemporary music

My 15 year old daughter read the last emails over my shoulder (NOT something I encourage) but she spontaneously burst out with "how could anyone say that the Tempest was dull, bland or boring? It was wonderful!" She was doing the play for English GCSE, had been taken to the stage version by the school, which she DID find dull and watched the opera on DVD. It's very much a matter of individual taste I think.

I listened to Adés at the insight evening talking about the rhyming couplets. He made the point that the text did not have enough "shape" for what he wanted from the opera, he wanted something more defined than the rather amorphous original. He did try using the original text but it just didn't gell for him, so he went into the rhyming couplets and immediately found that he was able to set this in the way he imagined. OK, you can say that is because he was thinking "bland" but I don't agree. The basis of the original text and the iconic images are still there in the text he used, but the whole piece moves with a pace that is lacking in the stage play.

If you want "bland" can we discuss 1984? Not a piece that I would call an opera although the staging made it an unusual and fairly emotive piece of theatre, and on that level it worked for me. In 1984 the action is not carried by the music - in the Tempest it is. 1984 is another piece where the libretto was created as verse from the original novel (I think) and it was certainly worse than the libretto used in the Tempest, with some unintentionally crass images. The music was eminently forgettable, except possibly for the children's chorus based on nursery rhymes. The more I listen to the Tempest the more I find in it, I don't listen to 1984 for pleasure because there's nothing in the music.

That's all very interesting about the Tempest- I must get hold of the DVD and have another watch. I think maybe my expectations were very high (as I've said I do like Tom A), so perhaps that might have played a part in my reaction. I did really enjoy the Sibelius/Shakespeare musical play version recently at the Barbican, but in fairness it probably can't be compared to the new Tempest as it treats the source materials in such a different way.

Can't comment on 1984- the shocking critical notices kept me away!