The Yellow Sofa is an opera by the British composer Julian Philips, with a libretto by writer and director Edward Kemp, based on the novella Alves & Co. by Eça de Queiros.
This premiere production was revived at Glyndebourne in autumn 2012 and then taken on a national tour that same year,[2] including a performance at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
Godofredo's world then falls apart: he throws his wife out of their house, he consults his father-in-law Neto, and he turns to his friends Carvalho and Medeiros, in the hope that they might offer him a solution.
Throughout the twisting and turning of Godofredo's newly awakened emotions, he converses with Amarela, the Yellow Sofa, contemplating a series of melodramatic solutions, including taking his own life, or challenging Machado to a duel.
Eventually, Godofredo's feelings reach a peak of tension: and while he experiences his own dark night of the soul, his friends come to a collective decision on his behalf, offering a bathetic release from desperate heroics.