Les mamelles de Tirésias

• Theater director (baritone )
• Thérèse / Tiresias (soprano )
• Her husband (Tenor)
• Mr. Lacouf (Tenor)
• Mr. Presto (baritone )
• Policeman ( baritone)
• Newspaper Vendor (mezzo- soprano)
• Reporter from Paris (Tenor)
• Son (baritone )
• Elegant lady (mezzo- soprano)
• A woman ( mezzo-soprano)
• Bearded man (Bass)

The opera 's Breasts of Tiresias (French: Les mamelles de Tiresias ) is a two-act comic opera by Francis Poulenc. The text refers to the eponymous play by Guillaume Apollinaire, which he began writing in 1903, but only in 1916 and completed in 1917 under the title " drame surréaliste " ( " surrealistic drama" ) published, which he introduced the term surrealism.

The opera premiere on June 3, 1947 in the Opéra -Comique in Paris in a version with a large orchestra. Poulenc's opera is set in 1930. He began in 1939 with the composition. Les Mamelles de Tiresias was completed in 1944. Poulenc changed the Handlungsort the Opera opposite Guillaume's artwork from the African Zanzibar for the fictitious " Zanzibar " near Monte Carlo on the French Riviera, where Apollinaire spent his childhood. Poulenc commented, this place is for a Frenchman like him tropical enough.

The central statement at the end of the opera is: " Ô Français, faites des enfants ", which means " Oh, French, makes children ". Whether this is an effect of this pronouncement that two sopranos had to give up due to pregnancy before the premiere, has often been suggested with a smile.

Action

Prologue

The theater director announced to the audience at the outset that the purpose of the following piece lies in the fact that people be persuaded to devote themselves diligently to the procreation of children.

Act I

In the imaginary city of Zanzibar Thérèse lives with her husband. Both are happy. Gradually, however, occurs at a Thérèse a change. You want to take her role as a woman and wishes most like to be a General or Minister. To this end, it gets rid of its external female attributes by bringing two small balloons to burst and attracts male clothes. It also introduces to a beard and changed her name. They now call themselves Tiresias. According to your desire transforms her husband. He becomes a woman. Presto and Lacouf that come straight out of a café, are witness to this transformation. A police officer says the disguised husband that Zanzibar has to have many children. The women can not fulfill this task alone apparently. For this reason he had set out to do the job himself. He actually manages to bring 40 049 children in a single day in the world.

Second Act

As the state budget is shaken by events and famine due to overpopulation threatens the state is attempting to elucidate the events. A reporter provides the disguised husband the question of how such a large family can be fed. He explains that this is not a problem, there would eventually food stamps and the children were partially already so large that they could feed themselves. A fortune teller who turns out to be Thérèse, predicts that fertile husbands are multi-millionaires, while sterile will die in poverty. A police officer rejects Thérèse and tells her that divination against the laws of the State in violation. After Thérèse has now regained her female figure, also her husband turned back.

In the end, both happily dancing and urge the viewers to get lots of babies, with the audience following song is sung: