Described as a "show for 17",[2] it is a setting of a libretto based on the poetry collection by the Chilean poet Gaston Salvatore,[3] who had been prominent in the West German student movement of 1968 in Berlin.

[6] Additionally, a large battery of percussion is used as well as voices and music on tape, representing street noises of Berlin, and brief extracts from Verdi's Aida and Mahler's Fifth Symphony.

[4] She lures the leftist intellectual into the cosy situation whereby they preach socialist values whilst essentially living the same bourgeois middle class lifestyle, identifying with the proletariat in words only.

[4] The work was premièred and broadcast by RAI Radio at the Teatro Olimpico [it], Rome, on 17 May September 1971[6] with William Pearson as the soloist and the Gunter Hampel Free Jazz Ensemble, the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble and the Fires of London along with the percussionist Stomu Yamash'ta under Henze's direction.

[2] It was met with boos from the audience, which, Henze reflected, "was understandable [in] that our portrait of Berlin caused displeasure" amongst the very intellectuals it savaged.