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As the Shakespeare Lives digital festival draws to a close we celebrate the playwright's final non-collaborative play, The Tempest, with related content from all the Shakespeare Lives partner organisations and more.

The Tempest is thought to have been written around 1610-11 and is set on a remote island ruled by Prospero, formerly Duke of Milan, with the only other inhabitants being his daughter Miranda and two magical beings, the monstrous Caliban and the spirit Ariel.

The play begins with the tempest of the title as Prospero uses his magic to summon a storm which shipwrecks his enemies, who deposed him, on the island...

The composer Thomas Adès in his first Royal Opera commission The Tempest created the central role of Prospero for the British baritone Simon Keenlyside. Adès envisaged Prospero as a young, vigorous man rather than an elderly magician, and chose Keenlyside not only for his vocal gifts but also for his skill as a physical actor.

Adès also wrote the spectacularly high and virtuosic role of the spirit Ariel for the American coloratura soprano Cyndia Sieden. The part is one of the hardest written for soprano: it ranges higher than the Queen of the Night in Mozart's The Magic Flute, and the singer has to sing 17 high Es in the first few minutes of her first scene. Not surprisingly, Sieden is one of the few singers who can perform the role of Ariel (her singing at the world premiere of The Tempest was described as ‘almost out of this world’ by the Guardian). She has sung the part in four different productions of the opera.

Other singers in the world premiere cast of The Tempest may have influenced Adès’s writing. For example, Adès’s first Caliban was the British lyric tenor Ian Bostridge, whose particular vocal quality suits Adès’s concept of the role, more wistful and lyrical than Shakespeare’s original.

(From: on the Royal Opera House website)

This autumn the Shakespeare Trilogy of all-female productions, produced by Phyllida Lloyd and starring Harriet Walter will conclude with The Tempest in a new 420-seat in-the-round temporary theatre at London's King’s Cross.

The Tempest cast by Helen Maybanks

The productions began in 2012 with an all-female Julius Caesar and continued in 2014 with Henry IV.

"The premise was to take the most voiceless group you might imagine - women prisoners. Refugees from our culture if you like - people without any access to the internet even - and watch them electrify an audience with nothing but Shakespeare's language. Harriet's work ethic defines the whole thing. Mighty verse speaking, the utmost humility and the greatest good humour. The company will follow her anywhere." (Phyllida Lloyd)