Les Mamelles de Tirésias – Gala

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 An opera by Francis Poulenc - EUPHONIA STUDIO

To mark the centenary of WW1 and Women’s Suffrage, the annual opera from Euphonia Studio will be Les Mamelles de Tirésias (The Breasts of Tiresias) by Francis Poulenc.

A riotous farce full of gorgeous tunes and lush harmonies, Poulenc’s opera, written in 1945, is a setting of Apollinaire’s 1903 surrealistic play inspired by the story from Greek mythology of the Theban soothsayer Tiresias.

Poulenc (whose centenary is also celebrated this year) inverted the myth to produce a provocative interpretation with feminist and pacifist elements. It tells the story of Thérèse, who changes her sex to obtain power among men with the aim of changing customs, subverting the past and establishing equality between the sexes.

Brilliant and yet rarely performed – this is the only production to be mounted in Britain this year – this opera is also immensely topical, in the wake of the #MeToo movement