Use of Parody Techniques in Jacques Offenbach’s Opérettes and Germaine Tailleferre’s Du Style Galant au Style Méchant

Abstract

Abstract In past scholarship, Germaine Tailleferre has been briefly written about as the only female member of Les Six and as a composer of instrumental music. Her body of piano music and a few of her other compositions have been analyzed, but her operatic output and style have to this point not been examined. This dissertation begins to fill that gap by studying the radio operas that were commissioned in 1955 by Radio France. Using parodic techniques developed early in her career, Tailleferre and her librettist, Denice Centore, created a cycle of five short operas that reflected the historical scope of French opera in miniature: Du Style Galant au Style Méchant. The fourth opera in the cycle, Monsieur Petitpois achéte un château, is a parody of the opérettes of Jacques Offenbach. This dissertation examines the parodic style of both Offenbach and Tailleferre, and shows how she successfully recreated Offenbach’s compositional style in her radio opera using specific imitative techniques. In the first chapter, an overview of the scholarship on literary and musical parody and available biographical information on both Offenbach and Tailleferre are presented. Chapter 2 is an outline of the history of parody and parodic methods, linking those used in literature to the various methods of musical parody common in twentieth-century music. Chapter 3 is a discussion of Offenbach’s opérettes, his style, and use of parody in his compositions. Chapter 4 is a detailed analysis of La belle Hélène, identifying characteristic parodic traits in Offenbach’s compositional style. Chapter 5 is a presentation of events and mentors from Germaine Tailleferre’s life that influenced her neoclassical style and compositions that displayed parodic tendencies both before and after the creation of the cycle. Finally, Chapter 6 is an in-depth analysis of Monsieur Petitpois achéte un château, connecting the parodic techniques used by Tailleferre and Centore with those identified in Offenbach’s opérettes. Highlights of my American premiere staging of this opera are also included.