About the work
Opéra bouffe in one prologue and two acts by Francis Poulenc, his first opera, based on Guillaume Apollinaire's surrealist play of the same title (1917). It premiered on 3 June 1947 at the Opéra-Comique in Paris under Albert Wolff, staged by Max de Rieux with sets and costumes by Erté.
Plot
In a fictional southern French port town, the rebellious Thérèse turns herself into the man Tirésias and leaves to pursue public office, while her abandoned husband decides to bear an endless stream of children on his own. After a string of farcical complications, the couple are reunited.
Cultural significance
Beneath the farce lies a serious appeal to repopulate a country depleted by wartime losses. Poulenc later called the opera his most personally revealing work, one in which his dual artistic nature of gravity and levity comes fully into view.