POWDER HER FACE Comes to Semperoper Dresden This Month

Following its world premiere at the Cheltenham Festival in 1995, the chamber opera Powder Her Face has gone on to thrill audiences around the world, becoming one of the most frequently performed works of modern British music theatre. Now, on Friday, 20 October 2023, the opera by Thomas Adès can be enjoyed for the first time in Dresden.

The two-act chamber opera »Powder Her Face« is based on a 1960s divorce case that shook English high society when the Duke of Argyll accused his wife of multiple adulteries, providing evidence in the form of compromising photographs and diary entries. Mixing memory with fantasy, Adès and his librettist Philip Hensher present the elderly Duchess of Argyll (Lady Margaret Campbell died in 1993 at the age of 80) in a hotel room as she looks back on a life overshadowed by the very public sex scandal. 

Musically, Adès’s opera for fifteen instrumentalists and four soloists is an eclectic homage to the musical styles popular during the lifetime of the scandal-ridden protagonist. In the composer’s unique approach, the work paraphrases the characters’ costume changes in newly arranged musical quotations from the 1930s to the 1960s, borrowing from tango and swing as well as from composers such as Kurt Weill, Alban Berg and Igor Stravinsky. Today, almost twenty years after its premiere, »Powder Her Face« has lost none of its enduring power, transforming a great dramatic tragedy into social discourse.   

The premiere of the first new production of the 2023/24 season in Semper Zwei will feature two singers making their Semperoper debuts, namely English soprano Mary Plazas and Welsh soprano Rhian Lois as the Duchess and the Maid, respectively. They are joined by the American bass Andrew Nolen and his compatriot, the tenor Peter Tantsits, both familiar to local music lovers. The premiere audience on 20 October 2023 can also look forward to British-German maestro Tim Anderson, who is conducting for the first time in Dresden. 

»Powder Her Face« Thomas Adès

Opera in two acts

Staging: Georg Schmiedleitner 

  

Premiere at 7 pm on Saturday, 20 October 2023, in Semper Zwei

Additional performances on 22, 24, 25, 27 and 28 October 2023

Dresden premiere

With Mary Plazas, Rhian Lois, Peter Tantsits, Andrew Nolen 

The project orchestra will be conducted by Tim Anderson.

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