Celebrating Shakespeare’s plays and their enduring influence on music, dance, opera, musical theatre and comedy, the British Council, the British Embassy in Luxembourg and the musical ensembles Le Tendre Amour and Quatricinia are proudly presenting The Tempest.
The Tempest
In this version of the Tempest British actors Rachel Winters and Eliot Giuralarocca together with five musicians from the early music ensembles Le Tendre Amour and Quatricina bring The Tempest to life, reuniting Shakespeare’s text with its original music. In lively 17th century spirit, the arts are reunited as music and theatre are once again experienced as a whole as Shakespeare himself intended.
The Tempest is staged on an isolated island ruled by the magician Prospero, whose power –on this magical island- is limitless. A rangeof characters find themselves on the island, against their will – they include lovers and others from noble classes, and more ridiculous figures from improvised comedy. By the end of their encounters with each other and with the magician, reconciliations both sentimental and comic have been achieved. Prospero begins the play determined to exert his revenge on those who usurped his dukedom. Shakespeare instead chose to end the story with a cascade of gentility, where those who plotted his murder are pardoned, his daughter is happily allowed to marry her lover, and his slaves are released as promised. Not only is The Tempest a romance full of magic, but also a stage for debates about authority and power that ring true still today.
Concept: Esteban Mazer
Staging: Serge Ayala
Script adaptation: Eliot Giuralarocca
Music selection and arrangements: Katy Elkin
Costumes and props: Katy Elkin