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The skittish vocal writing rendered her words inaudible. In general Mr. Adès was not sufficiently concerned with helping the singers project the words clearly. He grew up during the age of supertitles, and he probably assumes that his audiences will always have that crutch.
Still, you are swept along by the sheer ingenuity of the music. In the final act, when Prospero conjures a vision of a heavenly feast for the hungry island captives, the beguilingly strange music, with piercingly high winds dominating the orchestra textures, sounds like some modern reimagining of a Renaissance dance. The long final scene of recognition is a skillfully rendered passacaglia (a stately dance in the form of variations on a repeated ground bass) in which a rapturously lyrical ensemble for the main characters is supported by wistful choral refrains. This is music of a young master.
The orchestra played for Mr. Adès with palpable involvement and shimmering colors. The tenor Ian Bostridge, for whom the role of Caliban was written, missed this performance because of a throat infection, it was announced. That was doubly unfortunate because Friday's performance was videotaped for a BBC telecast on Saturday. He was replaced by the fresh-voiced lyric tenor Christopher Lemmings.
Mr. Adès has expanded Shakespeare's love scenes between Miranda, sung with warmth and tenderness by Ms. Rice, and Ferdinand, here the young, virile tenor Toby Spence. The veteran tenor Philip Langridge brought calm authority to the role of the King of Naples. The tenor John Daszak was a nasal-toned and scheming Antonio, Prospero's ruthless brother. The robust baritone Christopher Maltman made an aptly impulsive Sebastian, the king's brother.
There were also winning portrayals from the bass Stephen Richardson and the countertenor Lawrence Zazzo as the drunken butler Stefano and his jester sidekick Trinculo, and the bass Gwynne Howell as the old counselor Gonzalo.
The production, by the British director Tom Cairns, with sets by Mr. Cairns and Moritz Junge, employed rear stage projections, moveable walls and floors, flying spirits suspended from wires and jolts of neon lightning to give the work a fanciful yet darkly abstract look. A co-production of the opera companies in Strausbourg, France, and Copenhagen, it will be offered this fall by the Strasbourg Opera in Mulhouse and at an unspecified future date at the Royal Theater in Copenhagen. The Metropolitan Opera must bring this significant new work to New York.
