While Miss Donnithorne, a wilting old maid, dressed like a bride and surrounded by rotting wedding cakes, has been waiting for 30 years for her groom who never came to the altar, King George III, locked up in a dungeon, is trying to make his little birds sing.

Peter Maxwell Davies, probably the best known contemporary British composer, is carrying the typical ludicrous humour of the British to extremes. The stories are based on true events and tell of fascinating crossings of the thresholds between craziness and consciousness, life and death. As a consequence of their failed efforts to achieve happiness, the insane king and the excentric daughter of a judge have withdrawn completely from human society. The retreat to inner emigration is henceforth dominating their spiritual life. While imagining the royal debates with a scarecrow and the lofty orations of a lonely woman, Davies achieved a musical language of grotesque alienation and distortion. Proceeding from the sounds emanating from these two extreme characters he drafts a fascinating style of performance for two personalities capable of vocal acrobatics.