Theresia Breasts

Avant-garde writers loved to gather in the “House of Friends of Books” (Maison des Amis des Livres), Adrienne Monnier’s bookstore. There were Apollinaire, Jacob , Eluard, Aragon ^[3] . Apollinaire, the illegitimate son of a Polish noblewoman, was a prominent figure in the bohemian life of Montparnasse ^[4] . Thanks to him, the term "surrealism" appeared and the first representative of this movement, Henri Russo ^{[4] [5],} gained fame. In June 1917, Cocteau , Diaghilev , Myasin , Matisse , Picasso , Sati were present at the first performance of Apollinaire’s “surreal drama” “Breasts of Theresa” in the theater in Montmartre , and there was also a young Pulenk ^[6] . Many years later, Pulenk said that he was shocked by this farce, he could not even have dreamed that he would once put it to music ^[6] . At the same time, Pulenk called “Theresia Breasts” “the most authentic of what he wrote” ^[7] .

Poulenc’s first work on Apollinaire’s poems was the Bestiary vocal cycle (La Bestiaire, 1919). Pulenk again turned to the poet’s work in 1936 in the choral work “Seven Songs” ^[8] . In the 1930s, he began to think about creating an opera based on the play “Theresia Breasts”. In 1935, with the consent of the widow of Apollinaire, he adapted the text of the play for the libretto ^[9] and in 1939 began work on music. Most of the work was written in one breath from May to October 1944 in the country house of Pulenka Noisey ^[7] . Although the play was created in 1903, its first performance took place at the height of the First World War , and Apollinaire edited the text, adding a gloomy prologue. Pulenc managed to reflect both the farce and the tragedy of Apollinaire’s play in the opera. The critic Jeremy Sams wrote that behind the funny mess in the opera lies a deep and tragic thought about the need to revive the people of the devastated war of France ^[10] .

The name of the comedy of Apollinaire and the opera Pulenka refers to the ancient myth of Theresa , a blind old man who survived a wonderful transformation: he lived part of his long life as a woman, and the other as a man ^[7] . With the approval of Madame Apollinaire, Pulenk changed the time and place of action: “I chose 1912 because it was the time of Apollinaire’s first heroic battles for cubism ... I replaced Zanzibar with Monte Carlo to get away from the exotic, and also because in Monte “Carlo — which I adore and where Apollinaire spent the first 15 years of his life — is quite tropical exotic for Parisians like me” ^[9] . According to Pulenok, Monte Carlo became for him Zanzibar. The scenery of the first production depicted a town in southern France, while, according to the libretto, the opera takes place in Zanzibar ^[7] .

Pulenk used traditional number forms in the musical text of the opera - solo arias, duets, choirs in the spirit of old folk songs. There are all kinds of dance rhythms: waltz , polka , gallop , pavana , gavotte . Unexpected plot twists reveal a frequent change of tempo and rhythm in music, alternation of genres and forms ^[7] . Kaminsky writes that the music of the opera, like the music of Offenbach , Chabrier and Ravel’s “ Spanish Hour ”, captures the listener with a stream of “miniatures and vignettes”, dances and fragments of lyrical melodies, including ariettes in the style of comic opera or chorales (after a duel) ^{[11 ]} .

The opera was accepted for production at Opera Comic in 1945, but the premiere did not take place right away: there was a problem with finding a leading singer. Denise Duval , an actress from Foley Berger , personally chose Pulenk ^[12] . The opera premiered at the Opera Comedian in Paris on June 3, 1947, in magnificent sets and costumes created by Erte ^[9] . In the premiere, they came up with a vivid symbol: Theresa's breasts turned into balloons and flew into the sky, symbolizing the transformation of a woman into a man. This stage technique has become a kind of theatrical tradition ^[2] .

The opera was again staged in Paris in 1972, then in Lille in 1985 and in Saint-Etienne in 1989. Outside of France, Theresia Breasts were presented in Massachusetts in 1953, in Basel in 1957. In 1958, Oldboro performed the opera in the original arrangement for two pianos. The opera was staged in Philadelphia in 1959, in New York in 1960, in Milan in 1963, in London in 1979, in Dusseldorf in 1982, and in Tokyo in 1985 ^[11] . In the 1982/83 season, Theresia Breasts was staged at the Metropolitan Opera , and in 2010 at the Hermitage Theater in St. Petersburg ^[2] . At the Liceu Theater in Barcelona , Theresia Breasts were in the repertoire of the 2009/10 season ^[13] .

In a short prologue, the theater director talks about the performance and promises to present to the public a moralistic play about the need to have children.

Act 1

The eccentric Teresa does not want to dutifully devote her life to conception and the birth of children and becomes a man, Theresa. Teresa's husband does not like this at all, and besides, she makes him dress as a woman.

Meanwhile, a pair of drunken gamblers Presto and Lacouf are killing each other; the townspeople mourn them. Terezius declares himself a general and sets off for conquest, leaving her husband in the care of a gendarme deceived by his female dress.

General Terezius begins a successful campaign against the birth of children and becomes popular. Concerned that France will be depopulated if women refuse sex, Theresa's husband vows to find a way to give birth to children without the participation of women. The resurrected Lacouf and Presto listen to him with interest and disbelief.

Act 2

The curtain rises to the cries of “dad!” Her husband's plans were successful, and he gave birth to 40,049 children in one day. A journalist from Paris is interested in how he thinks to feed his offspring, but her husband says that all the children are very successful in the arts and made him a rich man.

The gendarme reports that due to overpopulation, citizens of Zanzibar die of starvation. The husband offers to print grocery cards on Tarot cards . A fortuneteller suddenly appears and prophesies that a large husband will become a multi-millionaire, and a childless gendarme will die in extreme poverty. An enraged gendarme wants to arrest her, but she opens her face. It turns out that Teresa was hiding under the mask of a fortuneteller. The pair is reconciled and all performers from the front of the stage appeal to the audience with an appeal: “French, give birth to children!”

• 1954: Opera Comic, conductor Cluitans ; Duval, Legoi, Girodo (Angel Records)
• 1998: Saito Kinen Orchestra, Tokyo Opera, Conductor Ozawa ; Lafon, Fushekur, Goetz, Clark (Philips Classics)
• 2002: Metropolitan Opera, conductor Levine ; Arteta, de Nis, Patriarcho, Swanson, White (The Metropolitan Opera)
• 2003: Nieuw Ensemble, Opera Trionfo, conductor Spagnard; Arends, Hermann, Lonen, van de Woerd (Brilliant classics)

• Hell, Henri. Francis Poulenc . - New York: Grove Press, 1959.
• Kaminski, Piotr. Francis Poulenc: Les Mamelles de Tirésias // Mille et Un Opéras. - Paris: Fayard, 2003 .-- ISBN 978-2-213-60017-8 .
• Poulenc, Francis. My Friends and Myself. - London: Dennis Dobson, 1978. - ISBN 978-0-234-77251-5 .
• Poulenc, Francis. Articles and Interviews - Notes from the Heart. - Burlington, US: Ashgate, 2014 .-- ISBN 978-1-4094-6622-2 .
• Sams, Jeremy. Poulenc, Francis // The Penguin Opera Guide / Amanda Holden (ed). - London: Penguin Books, 1997. - ISBN 978-0-14-051385-1 .
• Schmidt, Carl B. Entrancing Muse: A Documented Biography of Francis Poulenc. - Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2001 .-- ISBN 978-1-57647-026-8 .