Just the squeaking, I think!

It is very difficult to tell who is a genius and who is not (well, often easy to tell who is not!), while the person is still active. It takes time to sort out the true genius from the phoney, or even from the very talented. So many of the works that are considered masterpieces now were derided in their time, and so many works once considered wonderful are now dismissed.  It's partly just fashion, of course, but not entirely. The true genius has to have something to say that is unique.

Ades has been criticised (not least on this thread!) for shamelessly plundering other composers - but in fact most composers do that to some degree. What must emerge is an individual voice. I can't yet hear that in Ades, but I may easily not have recognised it yet. As I've already said, The Tempest made no great impression on me. I'm simply not sure yet about the music, but I am certain that for me at least it didn't work dramatically. I notice that Ian Bostridge thinks that it does work as "drama in music". Not for me, sorry. Do performers know more than audiences? They are certainly more involved, and that can make them partisan.

In this country the critics are all keen to find "the new Britten" (they largely missed the first one, apart from a few pieces, at the time!), and Ades is far from being the first composer to be hailed as such. I only wish I was still going to be alive 50 or 100 years from now, to see where it all is then.

I've listened to In Tune on LA. I still think what I thought at first - not difficult music, at least to listen to, and very beautifully sung. But how good? I still don't know.

Most of those posts weren't talking about quotation of material or stylistic pastiche here (unless you include 'writing in the style of Tom Ades' in that bracket)...

Hmm, must admit I though "Minnie Mouse" myself at the dress rehearsal, or a cross between Minnie Mouse and the Clangers perhaps. It was an interesting sound though.

In fact I thought most of the sounds were interesting and a lot of them were also beautiful, but I disliked the libretto and agree that the whole thing was weak from the dramatic point of view. (There isn't enough of Prospero to characterise him properly for example - in fact Caliban seems to be at the centre if anyone is, but there isn't enough of him either.)

Of course there are other operas that are poorly constructed and have lousy libretti but this one seems to ask for trouble by inviting comparisons with the original (which I'd just seen - probably a mistake too).

That's a good idea - I'd come and see it anyway.

It is odd, or interestingly revealing, isn't it, that Ades apart, and Tippett tippett-toeing round the margins, no major composer has ever done a full operatic Tempest? (Ducks behind sofa while hundreds of previous examples get thrown at me. Ouch!) It must have crossed the minds of most composers at one time or another and yet, until now, Engels feared to tread.

I'm convinced I have read somewhere that Mozart was one of those that thought about it. Am I making that up?

Hope the sofa's well upholstered, GG: here's another....

http://www.leehoiby.com/web/opera.html

It's a fair cop. After all, who am I to judge whether or not these no doubt admirable composers are 'major' 

I think you're right about Mozart, and Ligeti was going to do one, and Berlioz.