While
surfing through nodal space, I came across on E2 the nick
Teiresias, which jogged a memory far removed from either the
myth or the
scribe of the same name. Years ago I heard a
comic opera by
Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) entitled
Les Mammelles de Tirésias, which can be translated exactly as
Tirésias' Tits. It was staged in
Paris in the last days of
WWII in 1947, I believe. (No, I wasn't there!)
I don't remember much of the plot, possibly because it was so
surrealistic but I do recall the
scene that gave the
opera it's name. If memory serves, the
woman has decided to become a
man; she opens her
bodice to release her
tits which float upward. While puffing a
cigar, she praises the
beauty of her
mammary glands and tells how they have driven men
crazy. She closes the
aria with an equivalent of, "enough of these
aerodynamics" and bursts both
tits with the lit cigar.
Another moment I recall is when the
husband of the
woman who has become a
man, begins to create babies using thought power with
catastropic results. The
chorus of squalling
babies is deafening. Finally, the most
haunting musical passage I recall is when two
men argue about where they are. One says
Zanzibar and the other claims it's
Paris.
Thanks,
Teiresias, for the memory!