English National Opera
London Coliseum
United Kingdom
Conductor: Timothy Redmond
Director: Joe Hill-Gibbins
Designer: Ultz
Lighting Designer: Adam Silverman
Movement Director: Imogen Knight
Librettist: Philip Hensher
Duchess: Amanda Roocroft
Maid: Clare Eggington
Hotel Manager: Alan Ewing
Electrician: Alexander Sprague
Powder Her Face charts the glamorous rise and seedy fall of the notorious socialite beauty Margaret, Duchess of Argyll. A former deb of the year, the ‘Dirty Duchess’ was at the centre of a scandalous divorce case in 1963, the year of the Profumo Affair, when the Establishment was caught with its pin-striped trousers round its ankles. Drawing on episodes from the Duchess’s colourful life, not least her sexually voracious appetite, a mythical portrayal of this elegant yet ultimately tragic figure emerges
Powder Her Face launched Adès’s international career in 1995 and remains one of his most performed works. His dazzlingly precocious score is as witty, poignant and memorable as the Duchess herself, paying homage to the popular idioms of cabaret and tango, as well as to Weill, Berg and Stravinsky.
Making his opera directing debut is Joe Hill-Gibbins, one of the most exciting talents in British theatre, in a new site-specific production created within Ambika P3, London’s newest performing environment. Productions at the Royal Court (The Village Bike) and Young Vic (The Glass Menagerie) have earned Hill-Gibbins a loyal following and his recent National Theatre staging of Marlowe’s Edward II has only served to confirm his reputation. Returning to ENO after triumphs in Janácek, Britten and Strauss is Olivier Award-winning soprano Amanda Roocroft as the infamous Duchess.
Performances until April 19th.Thomas Ades : Powder Her Face
