L'heure espagnole | Les mamelles de Tiresias at Theater an der Wien

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) and Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) wanted their works L'heure espagnole and Les mamelles de Tiresias revive the genre of Italian opera buffa from the spirit of the French language again. An undertaking which was initially only limited success in both cases, both pieces fell but at their respective premieres at the Opéra Comique by large parts of the audience. A judgment is, however, long since been refuted, because both works are among the most humorous and most successful compositions, which has emerged from the 20th century in this genre.

In Ravel's L'heure espagnole the weekly fixed date, the watchmaker spends away from home, his wife comes in handy. You ordered the young poet Gonzalve rendezvous. Not Scheduled she has but the muleteer Ramiro, who awaits the return of her husband because of an urgent repair his clock. A grotesque perplex, and game of hide that threatens to spiral out of control with the appearance of a love-hungry bankers.

A gender-bending determines the action of Poulenc's Les mamelles de Tiresias comic grotesque. A woman male domination sorry, gets rid of her breasts and mutated to general. Her husband then decided to get the childbearing itself and gives birth to more than 1,000 children.