Monodrama for the Palmhaus Festival, Dresden (G) | 2004                                                                        previous project|next project 

My first (short) opera:
A Chinese 'Empress' crossed my path in 2004 in Dresden, it wouldn't be the last time that I would be confronted with Chinese Empresses...In 2012 I sang Empress CiXi in Willem Jeths' opera 'Hotel de Pekin'.
Composer/conductor Hans Rotman, with whom I worked often before, asked me to sing the lead in his 'Red Empress' and invited me to write a small monodrama on the same subject in the Palmhaus Festival for new music.
Gerard Harleman wrote the text about the life of Jian Qing, the wife of Mao.
I recorded all instruments on tape but added live-percussion.
Artist Ludo Winkelman created four huge portraits of Jian Qing which matched the atmosphere in the large concerthall in Dresden, a former Russian army base.