Powder Her Face

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Powder Her Face is a chamber opera in two acts, Op. 14 (1995) by the British composer Thomas Adès (b. 1971). The English libretto is by Philip Hensher. It was commissioned by the Almeida Opera, a part of London's Almeida Theatre, for performances at the Cheltenham Music Festival.

The subject of the opera is the "Dirty Duchess", Margaret, Duchess of Argyll whose sexual exploits were the stuff of scandal and gossip in Britain in 1963 during her divorce proceedings. The opera is explicit in its language and detail.

It was given its premiere performance on July 1, 1995 in Cheltenham, with Jill Gomez in the leading role. It won both good reviews as well as notoriety for its musical depiction of fellatio and it was subsequently banned by British radio station ClassicFM for being too raunchy.

1 Style
2 Performance history
3 Roles and premiere cast
4 Plot synopsis
5 Critical responses
6 Film version
7 Recordings
8 References
9 External links

[edit] Style

The music of the opera combines influences ranging from Alban Berg, Igor Stravinsky and Benjamin Britten to Kurt Weill and the tangos of Ástor Piazzolla in a witty and highly individual manner. There is not even a hint of the 'minimalism' of Thomas Adès' later works.

Describing the overall impact of the libretto and the theatricality of the entire production, Alex Ross notes:

"Hensher seized the opportunity to create the first onstage blow job in opera history, but he also twisted the story into something more generalized and expressionistic: Margaret becomes a half-comic, half-tragic figure, a nitwit outlaw. There were clear parallels with Alban Berg’s epic of degradation, Lulu [...] The libretto reads like a nasty farce, but it takes on emotional breadth when the music is added. With a few incredibly seductive stretches of thirties-era popular melody, Adès shows the giddy world that the Duchess lost, and when her bright harmony lurches down to a terrifying B-flat minor he exposes the male cruelty that quickened her fall. Adès’s harmonic tricks have a powerful theatrical impact: there’s a repeated sense of a beautiful mirage shattering into cold, alienated fragments".^[1]

[edit] Performance history

The premiere was followed by five London performances at the Almeida Theatre. It received a concert performance at the Barbican, London on June 8, 2006 with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the composer.

[edit] Roles and premiere cast

Four singers and an ensemble of 15 players (clarinet, saxophones, horn, trumpet, trombone, percussion, harp, piano, accordion, string quintet).

		Premiere, July 1, 1995 (Brad Cohen)
Duchess	dramatic soprano	Jill Gomez
Hotel Manager, also Duke, Laundryman, Other guest	bass	Roger Bryson
Electrician, also Lounge Lizard, Waiter, Priest, Rubbernecker, Delivery Boy	tenor	Niall Morris
Maid, also Confidante, Waitress, Mistress, Rubbernecker, Society Journalist	high soprano	Valdine Anderson

[edit] Plot synopsis

Scene 1 – 1990 (The hotel). An electrician and a maid are discovered by the Duchess in her suite, ridiculing her. The scene closes with the entrance of a male figure.
Scene 2 – 1934 (A country House). The Duchess’s confidante and a lounge lizard discuss her recent divorce. The Duke makes an impressive entrance.
Scene 3 – 1936. The Duke and Duchess’s wedding is described in a fancy aria by a waitress.
Scene 4 – 1953. The Duchess stays at the hotel and seduces a waiter. The waiter accepts a tip and reveals the recurrence of the Duchess’s deeds.
Scene 5 – 1953. The Duke visits his mistress. They flirt and she suggests that the Duchess’s serial seductions are the talk of London.
Scene 6 – 1955. Two rubberneckers comment extravagantly on the divorce case.

The judge denigrates the Duchess morals.

Scene 7 – 1970. The Duchess is interviewd by a society journalist. Her bill is delivered.
Scene 8 – 1990. The hotel manager tells the Duchess to leave the hotel, since she is unable to pay her bills. She attempts to seduce him but with no success. She departs.
Epilogue. The electrician and the maid surface from beneath the bed and destroy the hotel room.

[edit] Critical responses

US premiere performance review by Bernard Holland: "Making Light Of a Duchess Given to Night Music", The New York Times, December 10, 1998

"...an opera about an arresting, beautiful, inwardly inadequate, and finally tragic woman, whom they [Adès and Hensher] imagined as 'all cladding powder, scent, painting, furs, nothing inside', whose life finally crumbles about her. The form of the work might be described as 'cabaret-opera'..." (Andrew Porter, The programme note)

"The harp is the Duchess's particular instrument, 'swathing' her with perfume, jewels, rich fabrics, all the trappings of decorative exterior" (Andrew Porter, The programme note)

"Journalist and writer Paul Griffiths called the music of “Powder Her Face” ‘the music of the future’, written by one who has ‘the panache of a great opera composer’." (Andrew Porter, The programme note)

"Camp, spiteful, sneering little opera unworthy of Thomas Adès' talent. This bitchy little piece is based on the infamous Duchess of Argyll (she of the 'headless man' sex photos), seen in her last impoverished days, mocked by hotel staff and presumably smart-arse literati looking for a target for their adult wit. This performance is annnounced as 'semi-staged'; whether that includes the blow-job that's written into it is about the only point of interest in this arid little piece of superannuated adolescent exhibitionism. The composer conducts the London Symphony Orchestra in his pointlessly nifty score, with a cast led by the expert Mary Plazas and Valdine Anderson." (review in Time Out, London, June 8, 2006)

[edit] Film version

Powder Her Face was made into a film by Britain's Channel 4 and shown on Christmas Day 1999. The film was released on DVD in the UK for Christmas 2005, including a documentary film about Adès by Gerald Fox made at around the same time.

[edit] Recordings

CD recording cover

Audio recording: Conducted by the composer with the Almeida Ensemble and performed by Jill Gomez, Valdine Anderson, Niall Morris, and Roger Bryson. Recorded 1998, released 1 October 1999. (EMI: CDS5566492)

DVD: Directed by David Alden, conducted by the composer with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and performed by Mary Plazas, Heathr Buck, Daniel Norman, and Graeme Broadbent. Released in 2006 in the US (DC10002).