I am delighted that Art Sung has been asked to return to the Buckingham Summer Festival this year with our latest production about the life and work of the Grand Dame of 20th century poetry, Dame Edith Sitwell.

Settings of her poetry by Benjamin Britten, William Walton, Michael Head, Ned Rorem, and Robert Marchant are at the core of this semi-dramatized recital as well as music by Erik Satie, Leonard Bernstein, and specially commissioned songs by Hayley Jenkins and Dominique le Gendre. Woven through are excerpts from “Façade”, the extraordinary musical entertainment she created with composer William Walton. The narrative, drawn from her letters and autobiography, together with bespoke visual images inspired by her fantastical, whimsical poetry experiments, the Façade curtain backdrops, and the many portraits of Sitwell by artists including Wyndham Lewis, Roger Fry and the Russian painter Pavel Tchelitchew, reveal the private Edith behind her façade.