Simon Keenlyside, as a very tattooed Prospero
The Tempest seems to be a Hot Property these days. The most recent street-level advertising wave in Manhattan is for The Metropolitan Opera’s production (running through November) of Thomas Ades’ adaptation of Shakespeare’s most Magickal play (as well as the one to star a Renaissance Magick-User). The Tempest (the opera) made its premiere at London’s Royal Opera House in 2004, and is here making its Met debut; Prospero is sung by baritone Simon Keenlyside, who as you can see, makes an unusually studly Wizard. The thing that gets me here is, this is such a heavily tattooed Prospero: in trying to fill in the backstory to, what has Prospero been doing, all these years in exile on this island- this production (I guess) imagines that he has gone very Native, and passed his time in body-modification. (This raises the question, who is Prospero’s tattoo-artist? I’m betting it’s Ariel.) This must signal how completely accepted Tattoos are now in American culture, if classical Magick-Users work them on the opera stage. Once “Tattooed Prospero” catches on, what’s next? Prospero with disked ears?