Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.(William Shakespeare, Sonnet 60)
The Different.3 choral music festival presents an original live performance, The Tempest, or The Enchanted Island by Henry Purcell (1659–1695) based on the play by William Shakespeare (1564–1616). During the evening the Baroque music will come to life in an unusual show where both the participants and the audience will have their parts.
The protagonist of Shakespeare’s last finished play is Prospero, an exiled Duke of Milan and a great sorcerer. His home is a lonely island inhabited by spirits. Prospero is craving to teach his traitors a lesson and to get back his power. He uses his spells to send a tempest on to his enemies’ ship, and the element throws their ship to the shore of the enchanted island, leaving them in the sorcerer’s hands…
“In this case The Tempest’s score consists not only of Purcell’s music and Shakespeare’s text, but of excerpts from Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” and Gorky’s “The Song of the Stormy Petrel”, which will be recited by drama actors. This will help project the image of the tempest as a natural event rather than just reproduce Shakespeare’s lyrics.
The audience will take part in the performance by becoming the island and the show will occupy the Mirror Foyer including the crush bar, the cloakroom, the staircases and galleries… All the space will be filled with different sounds.” (Aleksey Veiro)
