Thinking with Opera 03: Thomas Adès and Operas of Confinement

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 notions of confinement and restricted movement in all three of Adès's operas.