She also wrote the libretto which was adapted from Lowe-Porter's English translation of Thomas Mann's novella, Die vertauschten Köpfe.

Living with the mix-up ultimately results in Shridaman and Nanda committing suicide again and Sita throwing herself on their joint funeral pyre.

She wrote the libretto herself, by her own admission basing it virtually verbatim on Lowe-Porter's English translation of Thomas Mann's 1940 novella, Die vertauschten Köpfe.

Glanville-Hicks retained some of that element by making the guru Kamadamana and the goddess Kali comic figures and giving them speaking rather than singing roles.

[3][4][5][6] Glanville-Hicks wrote in the programme notes for the premiere: It was my aim to create a grand opera on a chamber music scale.

While she was looking for a permanent summer house there, Errol Flynn's father Theodore let her use his son's yacht Zaca for her composing.

[5] The Transposed Heads premiered in a matinee performance at the Columbia Auditorium in Louisville, Kentucky on 3 April 1954 conducted by Moritz von Bomhard.

The opera was also recorded by the Louisville Philharmonic Society and released on an LP which was subsequently played on radio stations across the United States.

Its New York premiere came in 1958 in a production conducted by Carlos Surinach at the Phoenix Theatre where it ran for two performances under the auspices of the Contemporary Music Society.

[3] In his review of the New York premiere Howard Taubman wrote: She [Glanville-Hicks] sets English well, and she writes attractively for the voice.

"[3]In 1970, The Transposed Heads became the first major work of Glanville-Hicks to be premiered in her native Australia when it was performed by the University of New South Wales opera.

[8] Setting: Rural India in mythical times[10] Scene 1 Shridaman is a learned merchant with a noble face but a thin, weedy body.