ergon ensemble
contemporary music, athens

Ergon Ensemble continuing its long-standing collaboration with the Alternative Stage of the Greek National Opera

performs the masterly scandal-based opera Powder her face(1995) of the British music scene’s enfant terrible and Grammy and Laurence Olivier award-winner, Thomas Adès.
The work is based on the scandalous life of Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll, who in 1963 shocked the English audience with her sexual excesses.

The Duchess’ true and bold story, her love affairs, passions, divorces and tragic death are wonderfully portrayed through the enrapturing music of charismatic composer Thomas Adès –considered by many as Benjamin Britten’s successor– and Philip Hensher’s libretto with its peculiar language and provocative love scenes.
In his music, Thomas Adès elaborately combines various influences from Igor Stravinsky, Alban Berg and Benjamin Britten to Kurt Weil’s cabarets and Astor Piazzola’s tangos, creating an opera already considered a modern classic and performed in the world’s leading opera houses.