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...
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.
Gerard Harleman wrote the text about the life of Jain 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, a former Russian army base.