45, is an American opera in two acts and 12 scenes, with libretto and music by Lowell Liebermann, based on the 1890 novel of the same name by Oscar Wilde.
Dorian then laments the fact that while he will grow old, the picture will remain young forever, saying 'If it were only the other way...for that, I would give my soul.'
Basil notices a change in Dorian and accuses Lord Henry of becoming a bad influence on him.
Scene 2 A month later, at a visit to Lord Henry's house, Dorian says that he has fallen in love with a young Shakespearean actress, Sibyl Vane.
He asks Lord Henry to bring Basil with him to Sibyl's performance as Juliet the next night.
After Dorian leaves, Sibyl's brother James, a sailor, says goodbye as he is about to depart for Australia.
On doing so, she explains her poor performance by saying that because Dorian has shown her real love, she will no longer be able to 'mimic passion' on the stage.
In a soliloquy, she wishes for his return, recalling fragments of Romeo and Juliet, and stares at the poison bottle in her hands.
Looking again at the altered portrait, he resolves to let it represent the life he shall now lead, in search of 'pleasures secret and subtle, wild joys and wilder sins'.
After Basil departs, Dorian tells his butler, before going to the opera, to hire two men to move the painting to the attic.
Scene 4 Outside the tavern, the sailor identifies himself as James Vane, pulls out a gun, and vows to kill Dorian for causing her death.
Lord Henry scoffs and says that Dorian has only made himself feel good whilst possibly breaking the girl's heart.
Thinking about the young girl with whom he broke off, he removes the cover from his portrait, hoping to find some diminution of his temporal corruption.
Hoping to destroy the one visual proof of his evil, he stabs the portrait with the same knife used to kill Basil.
The portrait has regained its original look of the young Dorian, whilst on the floor lies the horribly disfigured body of a wrinkled old man, covered in blood, with a knife in his heart.