At the Opéra
After seeking refuge in Cahors during the Débâcle of 1940, the Director of the Opéra, Jacques Rouché, was preparing to reopen the theater under the Occupation, after which he would be required to compose according to the occupying forces' requirements and the anti-Semitic legislation of the Vichy regime.
In the fall of 1940, he was forced to exclude thirty artists and staff members, while he was able to ensure that they were paid through December 1942. The occupying authorities imposed only four German works, but Milhaud and certain other composers were "forbidden." In August 1942, during a ballet evening that included one of the imposed works, Joan de Zarissa by Werner Egk, Rouché's program included Les Animaux modèles by Francis Poulenc. Spectators recognized a fragment of "Vous n'aurez pas l'Alsace et la Lorraine et malgré vous nous resterons français…." [You will not have Alsace and Lorraine, and despite of you, we will remain French….]
The Opéra employees demanded cost-of-living payments, assistance for prisoners' families and forced-labor ration cards for machinists and certain artists. In spite of the Labor Charter that freed him from any involvement with pre-war labor unions or former employee representatives, Rouché negotiated. A clandestine union was gradually reconstituted at the Palais Garnier, and during the Parisian insurrection, the Opéra staff took part in the struggle for the liberation of Paris.
