Powder Her Face at Teatr Wielki - Opera Narodowa, Moniuszko Auditorium

Powder Her Face, an ‘opera-portrait’ written in 1995 by the then 24-year-old Thomas Adès, is an abbreviated and only slightly masked in the libretto operatic biography of Margaret, Duchess of Argyll, the British ‘Don Juan in a skirt’.

In real life this natural born scandalizer wanted for nothing, except true love. She led a truly colourful life: two notorious marriages, wallowing in unimaginable luxury among other glitterati, eighty eight sexual partners ‘identified by court’ during her divorce proceedings and finally — the loss of remnants of her estate and a lonely death in penury.

Mariusz Treli?ski’s staging is arranged with great taste into an effervescent cornucopia against the background of which there looms from time to time a very delicately sketched silhouette of Thanatos. The show finale deviates slightly from the libretto and the Duchess of Argyll’s biography — the director’s vision is concluded by an insightfully staged tango-like epilogue, which the composer liked a great deal while viewing the Warsaw premiere.
Ages: For adults only