Intense emotions

The first revival of Thomas Adès’s The Tempest showed that, impressive as the first series of performances had been, three years ago, they were sketchy compared with what we see and hear at Covent Garden this time round. Certainly it sounded far more exciting this time: the opening deluge of sound was both more overwhelming and more interesting in its details, and led more naturally, after the opening cry from the shipwrecked Court, into the scene between Miranda and Prospero.

One of the few changes of cast from the first run is the recasting of Miranda. Excellent as Christine Rice was last time, Kate Royal has a more suitable voice for the role, and looks just as lovely. Her opening pleas to her father to spare the shipwrecked Court contain some of the score’s most heartfelt music, and indeed this whole scene, with Simon Keenlyside quite magnificent as Prospero, is at a level of intensity and invention which is by no means sustained through the rest of the work.