Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc was a French composer and pianist. His compositions include songs, solo piano works, chamber music, choral pieces, operas, ballets, and orchestral concert music. Among the best-known are the piano suite Trois mouvements perpétuels (1919), the ballet Les biches (1923), the Concert champêtre (1928) for harpsichord and orchestra, the Organ Concerto (1938), the opera Dialogues des Carmélites (1957), and the Gloria (1959) for soprano, choir, and orchestra.
Poulenc in the early 1920s
Place des Saussaies, Paris, where Poulenc was born
Pianist Ricardo Viñes, with whom Poulenc studied from 1914
Rocamadour, which inspired Poulenc to compose religious works
Les biches is a one-act ballet to music by Francis Poulenc, choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska and premiered by the Ballets Russes on 6 January 1924 at the Salle Garnier in Monte Carlo. Nijinska danced the central role of the Hostess. The ballet has no story, and depicts the random interactions of a group of mainly young people in a house party on a summer afternoon.
Poulenc in the early 1920s
Sergei Diaghilev
Marie Laurencin, who created the original decor and costumes
The Hostess, her two athletes, and the blue sofa: Bennet Gardside, Zenaida Yanowsky and Thomas Whitehead in the Royal Ballet production, 2005
