LUN 1001                      Die Rote Kaiserin

Libretto                          Gerard Harleman                                  

Commission               The Palmhaus Festival for New Music, Dresden

Premiere                       August 26th 2004, Festspielhaus Hellerau, Dresden

Instrumentation      soprano, tape and percussion

This first (short) opera of Krüs was written at the request of Hans Rotman, director of The Palmhaus Festival in Dresden. He invited Krüs - who is also a soprano - to sing the lead in his Red Empress and invited her to write a small monodrama on the same subject.

She composed Die Rote Kaiserin on a text by Gerard Harleman about the life of Jian Qing, the wife of Mao. Krüs 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.