Dressed in Eternity is the second scene from the opera Hôtel de Pékin (2008), composed by Willem Jeths to a libretto by Friso Haverkamp. The opera unfolds as a sequence of dreamlike scenes in which the Chinese Empress Cixi reflects on her life at the threshold of death, where memory, fantasy, and history intermingle.

Within this fragmented, psychological landscape, Dressed in Eternity captures a moment of suspended time—suggesting a state between life and afterlife. The music emphasizes atmosphere and colour rather than linear narrative, characteristic of Jeths’ operatic language, where shifting sonorities and layered references create a sense of timelessness.

Like the opera as a whole, the scene belongs to a broader tapestry of short, contrasting tableaux, combining Western orchestral writing with subtle allusions to Chinese musical worlds.