Les Animaux modèles is a one-act ballet with music by Francis Poulenc (FP 111), composed 1940–1942 and staged at the Paris Opéra in 1942 with choreography by Serge Lifar, who also danced in the premiere alongside Yvette Chauviré. It was Poulenc's third and last ballet, and its scenario — written by the composer himself, with the title supplied by the poet Paul Eluard — reworks six of La Fontaine's Fables as sketches of contemporary French provincial and urban types.
What is danced
The article documents the ballet's musical and dramatic structure in detail but gives almost no description of the choreography itself: no steps, holds, partnering shapes, or technique are named anywhere in the source. What can be established is the cast of characterised roles Poulenc devised for the dancers to embody — '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' — which implies a ballet built on danced character portraits rather than abstract or purely classical display, staged across seven fable-derived scenes plus a framing dawn and lunchtime scene.
Beyond that scenario information, any statement about pointe work, mime convention, ensemble patterning or Lifar's specific choreographic vocabulary in this piece would be inference from period and company rather than from the article, so it is withheld here rather than asserted.
Context
The premiere took place at the Paris Opéra in 1942 under Nazi occupation, with, per the article, many German officers in the audience; Poulenc used the score to smuggle in the anti-German song 'Vous n'aurez pas l'Alsace et la Lorraine' without it being recognised. The work sits in a long French lineage of composers setting La Fontaine's Fables (the article names Lully, Gounod, Offenbach and Saint-Saëns as predecessors), and Poulenc's colleague Arthur Honegger described the score at the time as showing Chabrier, Satie and Stravinsky fully 'assimilated' into a distinctly Poulenc voice.
How to watch it
Listen for the shifts in musical idiom the article flags — a 'bad boy's' waltz-java for the amorous lion, an Offenbachian can-can for the man with two mistresses, Mussorgsky-inflected writing for Death and the woodcutter, and a quotation from Paganini's Caprice No. 24 for the two roosters — since Poulenc's scenario ties each fable to a specific human caricature rather than a literal animal. Because the source is silent on Lifar's actual step vocabulary, treat any assumptions about pointe technique or partnering as informed guesswork rather than documented fact.
Structure
- Petit jour (Dawn)Opening scene marked très calme, setting the ballet in rural 18th-century Burgundy.
- L'ours et les deux compagnons (The Bear and the Travelers)A très animé scene based on La Fontaine's fable of the bear and two travelers.
- La cigale et la fourmi (The Ant and the Grasshopper)Marked très allant; Poulenc recast the grasshopper as 'an ageing ballerina' and the ant as 'an old provincial housemaid'.
- Le lion amoureux (The Lion in Love)A passionnément animé scene in which the amorous lion becomes, in Poulenc's words, 'a pimp'; scored with a 'bad boy's' waltz-java.
- L'homme entre deux âges et ses deux maîtresses (The Man with two Mistresses)A prestissimo scene built on Offenbachian can-can verve.
- La mort et le bûcheron (Death and the woodcutter)A très lent scene in which Death appears as 'an elegant woman – a kind of duchess with a mask', with Mussorgsky-inflected music.
- Le combat des deux coqs (The battle of the two roosters)A très modéré scene quoting Paganini's Caprice No. 24.
- Le repas de midi (Lunchtime)Closing scene of the ballet, not included in the later orchestral suite's equivalent listing beyond its title.
Structure read from an encyclopaedia article, not from a libretto or score we hold. Confirm against a programme before treating the numbering as authoritative.
Credits
- composer: Francis Poulenc