Music like Renard

Renard, Histoire burlesque chantée et jouée (The Fox: burlesque tale sung and played) is a one-act chamber opera-ballet by Igor Stravinsky, written in 1916. The Russian text by the composer was based on Russian folk tales from the collection by Alexander Afanasyev.

The full Russian name of the piece is Ба́йка про лису́, петуха́, кота́, да барана́. Весёлое представле́ние с пе́нием и му́зыкой (Bayka pro lisu, petukha, kota da barana. Vesyoloye predstavleniye s peniyem i muzykoy'– The Fable of the Vixen, the Cock, the Cat and the Goat. A burlesque for the stage with singing and music).

In April 1915, Winnaretta Singer, Princesse Edmond de Polignac, commissioned Stravinsky to write a piece that could be played in her salon. She paid the composer 2,500 Swiss francs. The work was completed in Morges, Switzerland in 1916, and Stravinsky himself made a staging plan, trying to avoid any resemblance to conventional operatic staging . He created, rather, a new form of theatre in which the acrobatic dance is connected with singing, and the declamation comments on the musical action. However, the piece was never performed in the salon of the princess. It was not in fact staged until 1922.