However, various delays (including the intervening World War II) prevented its performance during the composer's lifetime.

It was first performed in America in October 2014 by Gotham Chamber Opera at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan.

[1] The opera is subtitled "The Tragedy of a Man who Had His Beard Cut", and the surrealist libretto is set in Paris about 1900.

The husband Alexandre, bearded, asks Philomène to bring in a suitcase and secretly leaves, allegedly for the station, crossing his cousin of the same name from America.

In the second, the goddess of marriage, played by Philomène, condemns Armande and she is abducted by demons - bearded dancers.