Oakes wrote the libretto for The Tempest based on Shakespeare's play with music written by the English composer Thomas Adès. Her text, except for a few distant echoes of familiar Shakespearian phrases, is original. The opera was given its premiere performance on 10 February 2004 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. It has subsequently been staged at the Opéra National du Rhin in Strasbourg, at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, in a new production by Jonathan Kent in summer 2006 in Santa Fe, and in two separate productions in Germany in January and March 2010 - at the Frankfurt Opera, staged by Keith Warner and at Theater Lübeck staged by Reto Nickler. A production of the opera by Robert Lepage at the New York Metropolitan Opera premiered in 2013.
