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Poulenc is well known for being a rogue composer. He learned mainly by ear, and was largely self-taught besides a year at the Paris Conservatory. His pieces, however, are held up alongside those of Faure and Bizet. His operas, specifically, are colorful, shocking and filled with an eccentric genius.
In his youth, Poulenc was part of "Le Six," a group of French composers against Impressionism and Germanic influences from music. He was a great admirer of one member in particular, Eric Satie. Stravinsky, Satie and Milhaud are other famous members of this smaller group, and they went on to create shocking new sounds for the day and age they lived in. Unlike many young composers, Poulenc does not imitate any of his contemporaries in his music. He remains true to form with erratic harmonies, vibrant melodies and unusual ensembles. In thought, they allied themselves with the French writer Cocteau, very active and revolutionary at the time. As a group, they were not really tight-knit. They contained no manifesto, and were more like a group of friends that a revolutionary think tank.
In his life, Poulenc wrote only three operas. He uses tonal melody throughout and his music occasionally even has hints of the popular music of his day. His overall style was one of classicism, or a branch or music thought that hearkened to classical music, but contained vast variations on this genre. His operas contain an emphasis on lyrics and melody, which makes then entertaining and aurally engaging. All three operas are unconventional, harmonically engaging and contain a colorful quality matched only by Stravinsky. Of these three, only one, "Dialogues of the Carmelites," is approaching standard repertoire status today.
Poulenc's style, because of his lack of formal training, tends to be almost mocking. His operas all contain moments of tongue-in-cheek, and in some cases sophisticated political jabs. His first opera, "Les Mamelles de Tiresias," was produced in 1947. This opera is actually in opera buffa style, or opera that highlights comic elements and concentrates on the clownish and absurd. It is a satirical look at certain pieces of Greek mythology, particularly the story of Orpheus. In 1959, he produced "The Human Voice" (La Voix humaine), an opera of only 45 minutes, in which a suicidal women speaks to her ex on the phone. His opera from 1957, Dialogues of the Carmelites, is the progression of a young woman through a convent of the Carmelite nuns. Eventually, she joins the nuns at the guillotine, ending the piece. In the style of "grand opera," this operatic piece is very long.
In his operas, on can see Poulenc's unusual sense of convention and form. His opera "The Human Voice" was the first opera ever created to consist entirely of one singer. While it is not often performed, singers that do perform it often highlight it in their repertoire. His sense of dissonance is also very acute. All three operas contain dissonant qualities, and note combinations that were previously unheard-of in the operatic world.
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