Perhaps the loveliest, most enchanting and teasing operatic confection that the 20th century ever produced.. To hear it is to love it-and love it for ever.
Not only does this classic recording preserve the performance of the inimitable Denise Duval (and the superb conducting of Cluytens) but of the original orchestration (1946). In 1962, for a production in Milan, Poulenc reduced the brass and wind sections by four instruments: 1 bassoon (of 3), 2 horns (of 4) and 1 trumpet (of 3), and this is the only version now available. Poulenc, who specified the size of the string sections precisely, gave the total number of players in the revised version as 50. You can hear the difference most clearly whenever the brass weighs in at full force. Poulenc also made several revisions to DIALOGUES DES CARMELITES following the premiere at La Scala, including a few cuts and most significantly adding or extending interludes between the scenes, to cover scene changes (as Debussy had in PELLEAS ET MELISANDE and Britten in PETER GRIMES).
Denise Duval sang the lead in the premiere, and then the lead in the French premiere of Dialogues, and then the lead in La Voix Humane. Poulenc liked her!
I'd like to hear this translated into English as I've no idea what's going on. The music is typical Poulenc, like eating a rich chocolate cake. Delicious.
It's a pretty fun story. I will share a small good summary I foun: Thérèse is a bored housewife, fed up with her tedious husband and more interested in being a soldier. As she dreams of how life would be if she were a man, her breasts (in the form of balloons) float up into the air and explode, as she starts to grow a beard. Her husband arrives, and is bluntly told that Tirésias is no longer his wife. Two cheerful drunks come out of the café discussing a gambling incident, as a result of which they fight a duel and shoot one another. The mourning is led by Thérèse in male attire. Her husband, now dressed as a female, is amused to find that in this guise he becomes attractive to the local gendarme. He volunteers to provide the children that the women of the town seem reluctant to produce. The first act ends in general confusion - even the two drunks, no longer dead, are able to join in. The stage is filled with prams, and the husband celebrates his amazing fertility, giving birth to numerous progeny (40,000 in a day). Feeding them is a problem, and a journalist is suspicious, but one of the children is already a best-selling author. The husband is also issued with ration cards by a fortune-teller who is Thérèse/Tirésias in disguise. When this lady is attacked by the gendarme, she kills him, and the couple seem to get together again, exhorting the French people to make love, not war.
![Francis Poulenc - Sinfonietta (1947) [Score]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/9jUUES8l528/mqdefault.jpg)
![Kurt Weill & Bertolt Brecht - The Seven Deadly Sins (Die sieben Todsünden) (1933) [Score-Video]](/img/n.gif)
Perhaps the loveliest, most enchanting and teasing operatic confection that the 20th century ever produced.. To hear it is to love it-and love it for ever.
I just love poulenc so much
same :;)
Not only does this classic recording preserve the performance of the inimitable Denise Duval (and the superb conducting of Cluytens) but of the original orchestration (1946). In 1962, for a production in Milan, Poulenc reduced the brass and wind sections by four instruments: 1 bassoon (of 3), 2 horns (of 4) and 1 trumpet (of 3), and this is the only version now available. Poulenc, who specified the size of the string sections precisely, gave the total number of players in the revised version as 50. You can hear the difference most clearly whenever the brass weighs in at full force. Poulenc also made several revisions to DIALOGUES DES CARMELITES following the premiere at La Scala, including a few cuts and most significantly adding or extending interludes between the scenes, to cover scene changes (as Debussy had in PELLEAS ET MELISANDE and Britten in PETER GRIMES).
Denise Duval sang the lead in the premiere, and then the lead in the French premiere of Dialogues, and then the lead in La Voix Humane. Poulenc liked her!
I'd like to hear this translated into English as I've no idea what's going on. The music is typical Poulenc, like eating a rich chocolate cake. Delicious.
It's a pretty fun story.
I will share a small good summary I foun:
Thérèse is a bored housewife, fed up with her tedious husband and more interested in being a soldier. As she dreams of how life would be if she were a man, her breasts (in the form of balloons) float up into the air and explode, as she starts to grow a beard. Her husband arrives, and is bluntly told that Tirésias is no longer his wife.
Two cheerful drunks come out of the café discussing a gambling incident, as a result of which they fight a duel and shoot one another. The mourning is led by Thérèse in male attire. Her husband, now dressed as a female, is amused to find that in this guise he becomes attractive to the local gendarme. He volunteers to provide the children that the women of the town seem reluctant to produce. The first act ends in general confusion - even the two drunks, no longer dead, are able to join in.
The stage is filled with prams, and the husband celebrates his amazing fertility, giving birth to numerous progeny (40,000 in a day). Feeding them is a problem, and a journalist is suspicious, but one of the children is already a best-selling author. The husband is also issued with ration cards by a fortune-teller who is Thérèse/Tirésias in disguise. When this lady is attacked by the gendarme, she kills him, and the couple seem to get together again, exhorting the French people to make love, not war.
And secondly, you can actually read the translation on the score
@@OctopusContrapunctus Thank you very much.