Les Mamelles de Tirésias by Francis Poulenc: the authenticity of desire «beyond all this folly»

Among the musical theatre performances that premiered in Europe in the years 1945–1947, Les Mamelles de Tirésias by Francis Poulenc (3 June 1947, Opéra Comique, Paris) stands out as a successful and bubbly musical adaptation of Guillaume Apollinaire’s surrealist drama. 

Due to the topic’s obvious connection to gender issues, this opéra-bouffe in two acts and a prologue has been studied within the field of queer musicology [Allred 2013]. Since the 2000s, several hermeneutical readings of Poulenc’s production have been pointing to the author’s ambivalent stance on his own homosexuality (which was an open secret in the public sphere) as a possible interpretive key to his aesthetics (the first has been Clifton [2002]). The most recent studies focus on the expression of camp [Moore 2012; 2016; 2018; Purvis 2018].

My own reading of Les Mamelles de Tirésias does not follow a camp interpretation. I will instead show how the music hints at the intensity of queer desire, concealed behind the comical mask of the mistaken identity caused by the female attire of the Husband (baritone). I will therefore analyse the scenes of his first encounter with the Gendarme (baritone), in the first act, and with the Journalist (tenor), in the second. While the libretto creates a comical effect through the back-and-forth between the two male roles, the music at times underscores the comedy and at other times conveys great emotional depth. My approach to these two scenes will show how Poulenc tells the story of queer desire “through” the music, which gives expression to an authentic feeling permeated with eroticism and nostalgia.