Thinking with Opera: Thomas Adès and Operas of Confinement

The third podcast in Opera North's Thinking with Opera series, produced as part of the DARE partnership between Opera North and the University of Leeds, was released on 18 January 2021. Listen and subscribe on Spotify » and Apple Podcasts »

Professor Edward Venn and Aletta Collins

How do music, plot, staging, action, dance and performance combine to produce meaning for an opera audience?

Taking a close look at Thomas Adès’s The Tempest, Professor Edward Venn of the University of Leeds and choreographer and director Aletta Collins – who choreographed the opera’s premiere in 2004 – explore the conversation between different elements in opera.

They also consider the notions of confinement and restricted movement in all three of Adès’s operas: The Tempest, Powder Her Face (1995), and The Exterminating Angel (2016), which take on a new significance in the COVID-era.