If you mean what can you expect from the seat, I don't know! I'm assuming you haven't seen this opera before?

I saw about the third performance of The Tempest; it's very strange, and quite a way from Shakepeare - the libretto is DIRE. The music isn't difficult, but I came away thinking that I wasn't sure whether I liked it or not, quite an unusual feeling for me. It just didn't make much impression either way. I also felt that without the very spectacular production there might not have been all that much left. The singing at those first performances was superb all round - Ariel is NOT easy to sing, but how many people will want to do such strenuous things to the voice is another matter! Clever, but not very musical. I also felt that the play isn't really a very good subject for opera - not dramatically tense enough, and without Shakespeare's words so much of the meaning of it is lost.

Watch out for musical quotations from Sibelius and Britten, and no doubt others that I missed. I really ought to see it again to see what I think now.

I was sad enough to have been at the ROH 'Insight evening' on The Tempest last night. Rather good actually: Ades was charming as well as intelligent and Toby Spence spoke with great insight - for a tenor 
Cynthia Sieden talked about the immense difficulties of her role, and said that, having now performed it in 4 venues, she now has no difficulties with it at all, and noted with interest from a recording of the first run audible signs of difficulties that she no longer feels. Muscle memory is a wonderful thing.
I'm greatly looking forward to the revival, for which some changes have been made both to the score and to the production.

Well, I think it's safe to assume that Janacek won't have been written out. 

i went to orlando on march 7th and was in the back row! i was surprised how much i could see - although luck was against me because (as happens uncannily often) two rows in front was the tallest person i'd ever seen. it's all in the luck of the draw. During the interval i moved into the temporarily vacated seat next door and could see the vast majority (of the curtain )

 

yes, remind me how many composers were harmed in the making of this opera...

 

Sorry, I'm afraid I don't remember that bit! Was it right at the end?

Giulio Cesare certainly is a good one and so is Rodelinda - Glyndebourne productions of both of these are available on DVD. I've enjoyed the music of all of the ones I've seen/heard although some are stronger in the plot department than others.

The London Handel Festival tends to put on more obscure ones. Last year they staged Tolomeo and soon they're doing Poro. Can't think of any other upcoming staged performances in London but there are often concert performances at the Barbican.

There's an interesting review by Rupert Christiansen of The Tempest in the Telegraph this morning (not a paper I read, but I look at reviews online). It has the illiterate headline "The Tempest hasn't lost it's (sic) magic", which I hope is not his fault, and is generally not complimentary. He admires the singing, but says that Cynthia Sieden as Ariel, though technically amazing, "cannot avoid sounding like Minnie Mouse".