The Winter's Tale
The Winter's Tale, an opera by Ryan
Wigglesworth, premiered at English National Opera at the London Coliseum (Seymour).
Wigglesworth is a composer and conductor, and this was his debut opera ("2016/17
Opera Preview: The Winter's Tale"). Wigglesworth has been fascinated with this
play for years, and his ideas eventually culminated into music for an opera.
Rory Kinnear, and English actor and playwright, helped immensely with the
project as Wigglesworth's co-librettist ("2016/17 Opera Preview: The Winter's
Tale").
As an adaptation of Shakespeare's play in the form of an opera, this production contains more music than many other iterations. As such, many of the scenes come across as more dramatic ("Discover: The Winter's Tale"). Moreover, iambic pentameter is much more difficult to use in an opera because it is "too long to be sung" ("2016/17 Opera Preview: The Winter's Tale"). As such, they attempted to "retain as much of the color as possible, but just chopping down" the "lines" and updating certain pronouns ("2016/17 Opera Preview: The Winter's Tale"). Despite this, Wigglesworth says that the adaptation "feels faithful" to the original ("2016/17 Opera Preview: The Winter's Tale"). Thus, while it is closer to the original play than some of the other works in this anthology, it still uses artistic license, with the aid of music, to downplay or highlight various aspects of Shakespeare's original work.
In this opera, one of Wigglesworth's chosen focuses is Leontes and his emotions. His "fanatical jealousy" is highlighted, which adds a depth of seriousness to the opera (Seymour). Moreover, Autolycus's character is cut in this production, which takes away some of the lighthearted and comedic moments of Shakespeare's original work, thus drawing all the more attention to Leontes's wild expressions and emotions. In addition, the actor who played Leontes, Iain Paterson, "was a towering vocal force, wonderfully embodying first the self-consuming grip of Leontes' obsession and then the pathos of his 'winter', spent 'in shame perpetual'" (Seymour). Whereas a text does not achieve sound in the way an opera can, Leontes's character was able to be imposing through his expressions and his "towering" voice, something which reflects the tone of the original Leontes. The "terseness of the text," due to the translation from a play to an opera, adds to the serious of Leontes's words, as well as his character (Seymour).
link to trailer and extra information: https://www.eno.org/collections/winters-tale-official-trailer-201617/
audio preview: https://www.eno.org/collections/opera-preview-winters-tale/
audio excerpt : https://www.eno.org/discover-opera/operas/explore-the-winters-tale/the-music/
Works Cited:
"Discover: The Winter's Tale." ENO, https://www.eno.org/operas/the-winters-tale/.
Seymour, Claire. "A Winter's Tale: A World Premiere at English National Opera." Opera Today, 5 Mar. 2017, https://www.operatoday.com/content/2017/03/a_winters_tale_.php.
"2016/17 Opera Preview: The Winter's Tale." SoundCloud, https://soundcloud.com/englishnationalopera/201617-opera-preview-the-winters-tale.
Pictures:
https://www.opera-online.com/en/items/personnalities/ryan-wigglesworth https://www.operatoday.com/content/2017/03/a_winters_tale_.php https://www.google.com/search?q=the+winter%27s+tale+opera&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjH-OvaiojfAhWhyoMKHTAICjMQ_AUIDygC&b https://www.google.com/search?biw=1106&bih=518&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=ZHMHXJjfEcrjjwTkk4CoBg&q=rory+kinnear&oq=rory+kinnear&gs_l=img.3..0l10.64894.79409..79974...0.0..0.87.755.12......3....1..gws-wiz-img.....0..35i39j0i67.-CqSnTcvu7Y#imgrc=VcRjf_x4Av7JPM: https://www.google.com/search?biw=1106&bih=518&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=EXMHXLCZJqnRjwTwxL7QCw&q=the+winter%27s+tale+owigglesworth&oq=the+winter%27s+tale+owigglesworth&gs_l=img.3...77775.80751..81075...0.0..0.115.1042.15j1......1....1..gws-wiz-img.......0i24j35i39.5QzdK42synU#imgrc=IOwnmdT8kHRC_M: