(AP) Thomas Ades wanted to be provocative in his first opera, Powder Her Face, when he composed a scene in which he musically depicts a sex act between the Duchess of Argyll and a waiter. Not enough ...

Following its world premiere at the Cheltenham Festival in 1995, the chamber opera Powder Her Face has gone on to thrill audiences around the world, becoming one of the most frequently performed works ...

Let's get straight to the fellatio, shall we. The blow job - and its Polaroid rendition - that led to the 1960s divorce trial of the dissolute Duchess of Argyll forms the centrepiece aria (an aria ...

There is a scene in Carlos Wagner’s daring production, here receiving its first revival, that scales the heights of stylish symbolism. The humiliation of the Duchess (Joan Rodgers) is made flesh as ...

What a shame then that these are obscured in the baggy, cavernous space of English National Opera’s latest field-trip venue – the University of Westminster’s Ambika P3 concrete bunker. Press notes ...