The Breasts of Tiresias
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Les mamelles de Tirésias ("The Breasts of Tiresias") is a surrealist two act opéra bouffe by Francis Poulenc, based on a text by Guillaume Apollinaire written in 1903 but first performed in 1917. The opera premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 1947.
Poulenc first thought of setting Les mamelles... in the 1930s, and began composition in 1939, finishing five years later in 1944. He altered the setting of the opera from the real African island of Zanzibar to an imaginary town called Zanzibar near Monte-Carlo (Apollinaire's childhood home) on the French Riviera. This latitude, he said, was "quite tropical enough for the Parisian that I am."
The opera closes with the stern command, "Ô Français, faites des enfants!" ("O Frenchmen, make babies!") and the success of this propaganda is seen in the fact that the first two sopranos cast in the role had to give it up before the premiere on account of pregnancy. Whether the work played a significant role in the post-war baby boom has not been determined.
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