As part of Vache Baroque's 2026 summer opera festival they are performing a version of Shakespeare's The Tempest based on the 1674 show produced by Thomas Betterton, what has become known as a semi-opera but which in the 17th century was referred to as a dramatick opera. Singers Stephanie Hershaw, Isabelle Peters, Camilla Seale, Conor Prendiville and Ross Cumming will be joining forces with actors from Out of Chaos, directed by Paul O'Mahoney with Jonathan Darbourne directing the Vache Baroque Band.
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| Dorset Garden Theatre depicted in 1673 where The Tempest was presented in 1674 |
Much of the music included in Vache Baroque's production was originally composed by Henry Purcell, Matthew Locke, Pelham Humfrey, and others for the 1674 version of The Tempest. To this has been added works by other European composers of the period as well as shanties, improvisations, and a full masque by Purcell.
In this article we chat to mezzo-soprano Camilla Seale who will be playing Stephano in the production.
You are currently rehearsing for Vache Baroque’s new production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest as a semi-opera which opens at the Vache on Saturday 29 August and runs to 6 September. This hybrid version of Shakespeare’s play has seen you collaborate with Paul O’Mahony’s theatre company. How have you found working with Paul and the actors from Out of Chaos? What are the synergies and tensions in the difference of approach between the actors and the singers, and what effect do you feel this has had on the rehearsal process?
It’s such a pleasure to be in a room with open, curious performers from different creative backgrounds - from the actors, to the band, to the singers. I can’t really say that any one person is only really of one discipline, and that’s how it should be. The actors bring so much intelligence and authenticity, and I think the music brings them a different kind of emotional input that has definitely provided some surprises in rehearsal.
In your role as Stephano in this semi-opera, do music and words have equal prominence? How are they melded together so that music and words intermingle seamlessly?
Yes, the role definitely feels like it’s 50:50. Even within the (musical) masque, Purcell as a composer has a very text-led musical imagination, so even for the instrumentalists, they are speaking and dancing rather than just playing beautiful musical lines. I don’t think though, even when singing pure opera, that I have ever let go of words and thoughts. Specifically in The Tempest, music has a clear role as magic on the island, so it fits like a glove here.
What do you want audiences to take away from this production and the experience of watching The Tempest by the lake on a summer night?
Shakespeare loves a metatheatrical reference; Prospero tells Ferdinand ‘Be cheerful, sir. Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air […] And - like the baseless fabric of this vision […] shall dissolve’. Everything that we conjure together, players and audience, on Prospero’s island is created inside a bed of nature in the Vache grounds. The way the stage is constructed allows the audience to see across the lake and the surrounding trees through the back of the stage, as characters stumble through the island trying to find their way, with the second half gorgeously lit in the tent as the sun sets. It’s Shakespeare’s last play - he was thinking a lot about legacy and what we leave behind. And I think he was concerned with what it means to be mortal, and where joy can be found, and I hope that the audience catch something of that when they come to see the play.
Last year you performed with Barokksolistene singing the role of Dido in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at Longborough Opera Festival. This was a production complete with audience participation in true Barokksolistene form. How does baroque repertoire allow more flexibility to experiment and create more innovative productions?
Something that Barokksolistene do so well is traverse between baroque and folk music, and both forms by their nature are meant to be shared within communities - whether through communal singing or dancing. Baroque music at its core comes from dance, which is a shared activity, expressively and socially. Personally when I go to see baroque concerts, I enjoy the grooviness in a way I don’t quite experience with later periods of classical music. And maybe other people are experiencing the same thing.
As part of the New Renaissance Collective, you co-created and performed in productions including an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Venus & Adonis. How did that prepare you for this production at The Vache?
I think the time I spent with friends in research and development with New Renaissance Collective and putting on the shows allowed all of us to fearlessly and idiotically explore and create theatre in a way that I’ve surely held on to in every creative environment I’ve been in since. I can remember laughing so hard in some workshops that it hurt. I’ll be forever grateful for those experiences and friendships and perhaps both the empowerment and fearlessness it - and those people - inspired in me.
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| Purcell: Dido and Aeneas - Camilla Seale as Dido with Barokksolistene at Longborough Festival Opera, 2025 |
Vache Baroque's production of The Tempest opens at The Vache, Chalfont St Giles, on 29 August with further performances on 30 August, 5 and 6 September 2026. Full details from Vache Baroque's website.
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