Thomas Adès: Powder Her Face: Vocal: Score

Thomas Adès and Philip Hensherâ??s dazzlingly precocious chamber opera Powder Her Face propelled its composer to international attention after its premiere in 1995 and with nearly 300 worldwide performances remains one of the most frequently performed British operas of the last two decades. Charting the glamorous rise and seedy fall of the notorious socialite beauty Margaret Duchess of Argyll the score is as witty poignant and memorable as the â??Dirty Duchessâ?? herself paying homage to the popular idioms of cabaret and tango as well as to Weill Berg and Stravinsky. It is hard to believe that this masterpiece was written by a 24year-old but then that young man was Adès whose prodigious musical talent was awe-inspiring even as a teenager.

An Opera in Three Acts-Adès?s third opera The Exterminating Angel premiered at the Salzburg Festival in July 2016. Based on Luis Buñuel?s surrealist classic El ángel exterminador the opera sees a collection of society?s grandees inexplicably trapped in a room.The libretto adapted from the original Buñuel-Alcoriza screenplay by the composer together with the director Tom Cairns brilliantly captures their descent into anarchy. Featuring a jaw-dropping 15 principals (who remain on stage for the majority of the piece) The Exterminating Angel is a true ensemble opera and the skill with which Adès delineates the many intricacies and undercurrents present over itsdensely-packed span (just under two hours plus interval) is breathtaking. Like the shipwrecked characters of The Tempest the cast of this new opera are held in a state of entrapment and dramatic stasis. Like the glittering high-society world of Powder Her Face the dinner party guests are denizens of a nightmarish world of aristocratic pretension.