Francis Poulenc may well have written his best music for the voice, in song and opera. Here Seiji Ozawa and company present a relatively unknown work in only its second commercial recording (and the first digital stereo one). Guillaume Apollinaire's farce 'Les mamelles de Tirￃﾩsias' dates from 1903; Poulenc began his setting in 1939. The action is simple: Thￃﾩrￃﾨse, fed up with the female life, releases her breasts (two balloons, which she pops with a cigarette lighter) and becomes a man. Her husband takes her place as the baby-maker and has more than 40,000 children in the first day. Poulenc's music is perfect for this surreal material. With some of the same colorful instrumentation and evocative characterization as Jacques Ibert's farce 'Angￃﾩlique' (in which a man decides to sell his difficult wife), Poulenc creates a musical world which supports the plot. It is not, however, all-farce. As in most Poulenc, there is true emotion and tenderness below the sunny, lyrical surface Barbara Bonney is superb as Thￃﾩrￃﾨse/Tirￃﾩsias, and the role of the husband is an excellent showcase for Wolfgang Holzmair. This little-known work could hardly find better exponents than Ozawa's international cast.

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Francis Poulenc may well have written his best music for the voice, in song and opera. Here Seiji Ozawa and company present a relatively unknown work in only its second commercial recording (and the first digital stereo one). Guillaume Apollinaire's farce 'Les mamelles de Tirￃﾩsias' dates from 1903; Poulenc began his setting in 1939. The action is simple: Thￃﾩrￃﾨse, fed up with the female life, releases her breasts (two balloons, which she pops with a cigarette lighter) and becomes a man. Her husband takes her place as the baby-maker and has more than 40,000 children in the first day. Poulenc's music is perfect for this surreal material. With some of the same colorful instrumentation and evocative characterization as Jacques Ibert's farce 'Angￃﾩlique' (in which a man decides to sell his difficult wife), Poulenc creates a musical world which supports the plot. It is not, however, all-farce. As in most Poulenc, there is true emotion and tenderness below the sunny, lyrical surface Barbara Bonney is superb as Thￃﾩrￃﾨse/Tirￃﾩsias, and the role of the husband is an excellent showcase for Wolfgang Holzmair. This little-known work could hardly find better exponents than Ozawa's international cast.