FEBRUARY - MARCH 2018 NATIONWIDE TOUR

THOMAS ADÈS
Powder Her Face
Sung in English with English surtitles

A CO-PRODUCTION WITH NI OPERA

“this astonishing, precocious masterpiece”
- THE NEW YORK TIMES
“★★★★★”
- THE SUNDAY TIMES
“★★★★★”
- THE TELEGRAPH

A sex-crazed Duchess trails the perpetual whiff of scandal. Her high-society world of perfume and furs is brought low through a sensational divorce case that delivers the world’s most notoriously explicit aria. Four singers in 16 roles and 15 musicians swarm through the style-hopping musical palette of Thomas Adès.

“I wrote the sounds of the eras into each scene - so that the pre-war scene would have a Palm Court acoustic, the sound of teatime at the Waldorf, say, with the noise of spoons quietly hitting a hundred teacups; and the Fifties scene the acoustic of a Paul Anka pop record, in a diner, with those pizzicati and congas and the pop of the needle on the ‘45’ in a jukebox; and the Seventies scene would have a transistor-radio noise, a tinny, psychedelic iridescence.” — Thomas Adès

“ Daire Halpin and Adrian Dwyer are both pitch perfect… Stephen Richardson delivers a tour de force… Mary Plazas …a truly great piece of operatic acting… [she] makes moral and emotional sense of the entire opera” The Telegraph

Powder Her Face is a co-production between Northern Ireland Opera and Irish National Opera.

Please note: this production is suitable for over 16s only.