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Powder Her Face
Thomas Adès
June 18, 2015 at 7:30pm
June 19, 2015 at 7:30pm
June 20, 2015 at 7:30pm
Boston Conservatory Theater
Powder Her Face
Music by Thomas Adès
Text by Philip Hensher
Sung in English
Run time: two hours and twenty minutes with one twenty-minute intermission
This opera depicts violence and sexual content specifically designed to be viewed by adults and therefore may be unsuitable for children under 17.
A collaboration between Thomas Adès and librettist Philip Hensher, Powder Her Face uses the salacious, gaudy, larger-than-life tabloid saga of Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll, to explore and satirize a web of power, politics, and social mores. In the 1930s, the Duchess was one of the most photographed women in the world and a style icon for millions; by the 1960s she had gained notoriety and the moniker “the Dirty Duchess” through a series of high-profile marriages, divorces, infidelities, sexual escapades, and extravagant living habits. Best known for the explicit Polaroid photographs accompanying her divorce case from the Duke of Argyll, the Duchess captivated the public with her scandalous, flamboyant public persona. But what should we really think of the Duchess and her life and times?
“The singing is stellar”
– The Boston Globe
Cast and Creative
Gil RoseConductor
Patricia SchumanThe Duchess
Ben WagerHotel Manager / Duke / Laundryman / Other Guest
Daniel NormanElectrician / Lounge Lizard / Waiter / Priest / Rubbernecker / Delivery Boy
Amanda HallMaid / Confidante / Waitress / Mistress / Rubbernecker / Society Journalist
Nic Muni
Stage Director, Scenic and Lighting Designer
Stage Director, Scenic and Lighting Designer
Amanda Mujica
Costume Designer
Costume Designer
Rachel Padula Shufelt
Hair and Makeup Designer
Hair and Makeup Designer
Background
A swooning accordion gives a glimpse of tango, and half a breath later a pulse of muted trumpet sparks a flash of the Jazz Age; a bumptious bass clarinet groove followed by a fizz of cymbals drives home a punch-line. From the first beat of Thomas Adès’s tragicomic opera Powder Her Face, the listener feels transported to another world. Adès’s musical language here is memory itself—fragmented, dreamlike shards of tunes that seem familiar and strange at the same time. Like all memory, Powder Her Face is episodic, exaggerated, and somehow exotic. Its lipstick is a smidge too red, its heels a bit too high, its language rather too salty for polite company. To wit, it is every bit the musical portrait of Margaret Campbell, the Duchess of Argyll.
Read the program notes
Media
Photos and videos: Kathy Wittman / Ball Square Films.
