See, see the heavens smile, with clouds no more o’er cast.
In this now happy, happy isle, are all your sorrows past.

Gotham Chamber Opera continues to set the bar high for innovation and creativity.  The company's The Tempest Songbook at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Grace Rainey Auditorium is the product of the glorious intersection of several great imaginations. Among its creators are Neal Goren, artistic director of Gotham and conductor of the chamber orchestra; Luca Veggetti, director and choreographer; Clifton Taylor, lighting and scenic designer; Jean-Baptiste Barrière, responsible for the video creations; contemporary composer Kaija Saariaho; English Baroque composer Henry Purcell; and, of course, William Shakespeare. This fascinating and moving hour of music, dance and video is a co-production with the Martha Graham Dance Company.  The stage is beautifully inhabited by a small chamber orchestra stage right and an open playing area for the dancers and singers to connect; above it are suspended several ropes and a large sphere, onto which Mr. Barrière’s ravishing video images are projected.

The Tempest Songbook is a coupling of Ms. Saariaho’s piece by the same name written for soprano, baritone and a small baroque ensemble and the incidental music for John Dryden’s version of The Tempest composed in 1695 and attributed to Henry Purcell. Each song is presented as a stand-alone monologue interpreted through singing, dancing, spoken text and video. Soprano Jennifer Zetlan and bass-baritone Thomas Richards take on various characters including Miranda, Ariel, Caliban and Prospero, while dancers Peiju Chien-Pott and Abdiel Jacobsen extend the exploration of these characters.

The performers are outstanding. Ms. Zetlan has a ravishingly clear soprano and brings a sparkle to Purcell’s long passages of sixteenth note runs; she is equally wonderful in Saariaho’s aching “Miranda’s Lament”, and her rendition of Saariaho’s “Ariel’s Hail” crackles with excitement. Mr. Richards possesses a commanding stage presence and a magnificently resonant voice, bringing to vivid life a diversity of characters from the Boatswain to the magician Prospero.

Mr. Veggetti weaves dancers and singers together as easily as Prospero conjures, giving the audience images that pierce the heart. Ms. Chien-Pott with her liquid limbs is enchanting and haunting. Mr. Goren leads a superb small ensemble of musicians who play with an impeccable attention to detail. The Tempest Songbook ends with Purcell’s “Halcyon Days” and “See, See the Heavens Smile”; by this point in the evening, the audience has been successfully transported to an enchanted island which they are reluctant to leave.