| Les Animaux modèles | |
| Choreographer: | Serge Lifar |
| Composer: | Francis Poulenc |
| Based On: | Fables of Jean de La Fontaine |
| Premiere: | 8 August 1942 |
| Place: | Paris Opera, Paris |
Les Animaux modèles, FP 111, is a ballet dating from 1940 to 1942 with music by Francis Poulenc. It was the third and final ballet that he composed and was staged at the Paris Opéra in 1942, with choreography by Serge Lifar, who also danced in the 1942 premiere. The themes of the ballet are drawn from the Fables of Jean de La Fontaine.
The sections of the ballet are based on stories from Jean de La Fontaine's Fables.[1] These tales had inspired works by French composers from Lully to Gounod, Offenbach and Saint-Saëns.[2] Its title was provided by the poet Paul Eluard, as he had done for several other works by Poulenc at his request.[3]
Poulenc began work on his ballet in 1940, completing a piano score in September 1941 and orchestrating it between October 1941 and June 1942.[2] He wrote his own scenario for the ballet, making the various animals more human-like than usual.[2] In his words, "The grasshopper has become an ageing ballerina, the ant an old provincial housemaid, the amorous lion a pimp, Death an elegant woman – a kind of duchess with a mask".[4] The commentator Gérald Hugon observes:
Hugon comments that all these influences are absorbed by Poulenc and turned into his own style. At the time of the premiere, Poulenc's friend and colleague Arthur Honegger wrote that "the influences that have worked upon him – Chabrier, Satie, Stravinsky – are now completely assimilated. Listening to his music you think – it's Poulenc."[5]
The company for the premiere was headed by Serge Lifar (who also choreographed the work) and Yvette Chauviré. Paris was under Nazi occupation, and the many German officers in the audience failed to spot the composer's defiant incorporation of the anti-German song "Vous n'aurez pas l'Alsace et la Lorraine" in his score.[2] [6] Poulenc later reduced the full score to a shorter orchestral suite.
Poulenc dedicated the ballet to the memory of his childhood friend Raymonde Linossier (1897-1930).[7]