Appendix 1
Operatic Attempts on The Tempest
Date Composer Librettist
1660 Robert Johnson*
1680 Thomas Shadwell Dryden & Davenant
1690 Henry Purcell Additions to above
1861 Arthur Sullivan n/a incidental music
1985 Zdenek Fibich Jaroslav Vrchlicky
1925 Sibelius n/a incidental music
1956 Frank Martin
1985 John Eaton Andrew Porter
1986 Lee Hoiby
1994 Peter Westergaard
2000 Jonathan Dove n/a incidental music
2004 Thomas Adès Meredith Oakes
Where the name of the librettist has been left blank indicates composers who made their own adaptations of
Shakespeare’s text.
* Robert Johnson was a royal lutenist believed to have composed Full Fathom Five
and Where the Bee Sucks, the scores for which were printed in Cheerful Ayres and Ballads in 1660 (Butler 2007:91).
This selection represents a sample of 11 – the actual number varies between 25 – 46 depending on source.
1
Appendix 1.2
The Tempest as provocation across art-forms
2
Appendix 2.1
Comparative Analysis: Shakespeare – Oakes
TEXT
I.2 SHAKESPEARE (WS) OAKES (MO)
NOTE: MIRANDA:
WS: Highlights indicate rhyme scheme, internal rhymes, alliteration,
Oh father
plosives, sibilance
MO: Highlights indicate rhyming couplets, repetition Storm and thunder, rain and hail
Towering waves, furious gale
MIRANDA:
The ship is wrecked, it groans, it shivers
If by your art, my dearest father, you have
Unnatural flames run and quiver
Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them
Screams faint like seagulls mewing
The sky it seems would pour down stinking pitch,
Is this my father’s doing?
But that the sea, mounting to th’whelkin’s cheek,
Woe the day
Dashes the fire out. O I have suffered
Father
With those that I saw suffer: a brave vessel,
There, fire and storm
Who had, no doubt, some notable creature in her,
While here it’s calm
Dashed all to pieces. O, the cry did knock
There black as night
Against my very heart! Poor souls, they perished.
While here the island’s bright
Had I been any god of power, I would
Father
Have sunk the sea within the earth or ere
Is this your skill?
It should the good ship so have swallowed, and
What creatures have you killed?
The fraughting souls within her.
Their ship is torn apart
Their cry harrows my heart
Father
Is this your art?
3
Woe the day.
I.2 NOTE: Five fathoms deep
Highlights refer across examples to indicate adaptations made by MO Your father lies
then I dream
to WS original text Those are pearls
I’m seeing heaven
That were his eyes
It’s as if
ARIEL: Nothing of him
The clouds had opened
Full fathom five thy father lies, That was mortal
I see riches
Of his bones are coral made; Is the same
Raining from them
Those are pearls that were his eyes; His bones are coral
Then I wake
Nothing of him that doth fade He has suffered
And cry to dream again
But doth suffer a sea-change a sea-change
V.I Into something rich and strange.
Final Speech
into something
CALIBAN:
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell. rich and strange
PROSPERO: Caliban
Hark, now I hear them, ding dong bell. sea-nymphs hourly
I’ll deliver all,
ring his knell
And promise you calm seas, auspicious gales, In the hiss of the spray
I can hear them
And sail so expeditious, that shall catch In the deep of the bay
Ding-dong bell
Your royal fleet far off.- My Ariel, chick,
That is thy charge. The to the elements In the gulf of the swell.
III.2 CALIBAN: CALIBAN:
Be free, and fare thou well. – Please you draw near. Caliban.
Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, Friends don’t fear
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. The island’s full of noises
ARIEL:
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Sounds and voices
A–I-e
Will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices, It’s the spirits
That if I then had waked after long sleep Sometimes they come
Will make me sleep again; and then in dreaming, After I’ve slept
The clouds methought would open and show riches And hum me
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked Back to sleep
I cried to dream again With a twanging
And a sweetness
Like playing
4
A thousand instruments
Appendix 2.2
Comparative Analysis: Shakespeare – Oakes
STRUCTURE
Shakespeare Oakes
Acts: 5 3
Scenes: 9 15
Characters: Alonso Alonso
Sebastian Sebastian
Prospero Prospero
Antonio Antonio
Ferdinand Ferdinand
Gonzalo Gonzalo
Adrian & Fransisco Adrian & Fransisco
Caliban Caliban
Trinculo Trinculo
Stephano Stephano
Master (of ship) Master (of ship)
Boatswain Boatswain
Mariners Mariners
Miranda Miranda
Ariel Ariel
Iris Iris
Ceres Ceres
Juno Juno
Nymphs Nymphs
Reapers Reapers
Other spirits, courtiers Other spirits, courtiers
