In terms of musical technique the operas show how far Poulenc had come from his naïve and insecure beginnings. Nichols comments in "Grove" that "Les mamelles de Tirésias", deploys "lyrical solos, patter duets, chorales, falsetto lines for tenor and bass babies and ... succeeds in being both funny and beautiful". In all three operas Poulenc drew on earlier composers, while blending their influence into music unmistakably his own. In the printed score of "Dialogues des Carmélites" he acknowledged his debt to Mussorgsky, Monteverdi, Debussy and Verdi. The critic Renaud Machart writes that "Dialogues des Carmélites" is, with Britten's "Peter Grimes", one of the extremely rare operas written since the Second World War to appear on opera programmes all over the world.