It premiered on 5 March 1967 at the Hamburg State Opera,[1] conducted by Charles Mackerras and directed by Egon Monk.
[3] The German libretto was written by Erich Fried, with an English version by Geoffrey Skelton.
[1] It tells the story of the murder of Thomas Arden by his wife Alice and her lover Mosbie.
The libretto draws on two sixteenth-century accounts of the murder, namely the version by chronicler Raphael Holinshed and the anonymous play Arden of Faversham.
[1] The British première was at Sadler's Wells Theatre, London, on 17 April 1974, conducted by Meredith Davies.