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Seen and Heard International |
Jim Pritchard |
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Puccini: Manon Lescaut, Royal Opera House London, June 24, 2014 |
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Italianate Ardour in Pappano’s Manon Lescaut
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United Kingdom Puccini, Manon Lescaut: Soloists, Chorus and
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden / Sir Antonio Pappano
(conductor). Broadcast to the Empire Cinema, Basildon, Essex, 24.6.2014.
(JPr) |
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During a discussion with Covent Garden’s director of opera, Kaspar Holten,
it emerged that it has been thirty years since Manon Lescaut was last put on
there; the year was 1983 and I was there to see Kiri Te Kanawa, Plácido
Domingo and Thomas Allen conducted by the late Giuseppe Sinopoli in a vastly
different production from Jonathan Kent’s new one.
There seems to a
revival of interest in Puccini’s break-through work that had a difficult
gestation. It is still probably not entirely clear who is responsible for
the text as five librettists were involved adapting a story based on Abbé
Prévost’s 1731 novel L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut.
These were: Ruggero Leoncavallo, Marco Praga, Giuseppe Giacosa, Domenico
Oliva and Luigi Illica. The always difficult-to-please composer and his
publisher, Giulio Ricordi, are also believed to have contributed to the
libretto that probably was completed by Illica and Giacosa who went on to
work with Puccini on his next three – and most successful – works, La
bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly. Regardless of whether the heavily-cut
story – as we see now – has any dramatic coherence, because it leaps forward
in time so often, at its 1893 première Manon Lescaut was a sensation. Most
importantly, as the conductor, Sir Antonio Pappano, enthused – during a
couple of pre-recorded music lectures he gave us at the piano – it contains
endless stretches of glorious music.
Kaspar Holten addressed the
issue of this problematic work by suggesting it is not the ‘Romantic pretty
fantasy’ most consider it to be and how ‘This story is about something that
is very much alive today – people selling themselves, emotions being for
sale – the dilemma about wanting everything and having to make choices in
life … it’s all in the opera.’ He went on to add that what we were seeing on
stage – through the vision of Jonathan Kent and his designer, Paul Brown –
were ‘scenes of modern life that are recurring’ and an ‘emotional landscape’
and possibly even … a nightmare.
The challenging title role needs a
classic lirico-spinto soprano, a voice that has Italianate lyrical grace
with power in reserve. Though I have only recently seen Kristīne Opolais in
cinema relays rather than live, she seems to be one of the finest Puccini
singers of the current generation. Her voice can cope with all the extended
passages of demandingly intense and penetrating singing, yet she is a
consummate singer-actor and totally believable as the naïve short-skirted
young woman we first meet (in Jonathan Kent’s contemporary production)
outside a casino in Amiens, France. Here her unprincipled brother, Lescaut,
an army sergeant, is escorting her to a convent but the conspicuously
wealthy, cigar-smoking Geronte tells him that he wants Manon for himself and
her brother agrees to this.
Ms Opolais affectingly conveyed Manon’s
girlish awkwardness and with a voice full of nuanced expression can act just
as well with her voice, as physically. The turning point in the story comes
early, when Manon emerges from a people-carrier to meet the dashing
Chevalier des Grieux, only a poor student; here the celebrated German tenor
Jonas Kaufmann whom we first encounter reading a book by Albert Camus.
During their first tentative duet Ms Opolais makes it perfectly clear
through her sensuous singing that Manon’s attraction to Des Grieux is not
just an impetuous rebellious act but a rootless young woman’s yearning for
being needed and for all-consuming love.
I hesitate to criticise
Jonas Kaufmann as few will agree with me but he is just not a Puccini singer
and most performances of his now are the same whether it is Puccini,
Massenet, Verdi or Wagner. Whilst, yes, there is ringing power and some
intense fervour, nevertheless, his singing seems to be to be over-emotive
and lacks Ms Opolais’s idiomatic lyrical style. His burnished baritonal
sound was darker at time than Christopher Maltman’s splendidly sung, venal,
Lescaut. Also for some reason Mr Kaufmann will resort to crooning in his
head voice that doesn’t seem right sometimes.
In Act II Manon has
evolved from a young, impulsive woman to the superficial plaything of
Geronte, who keeps her in luxury, dressed as a ‘baby doll’ in pink, and
probably having had a boob-job is now the star of a sex-themed reality TV
show … and a row of bald old men watch as she preens and ‘dances’ (gyrates)
for their pleasure. Later in this Act as Manon and Des Grieux ‘reconnected’
what we saw as they tried to tear the clothes of each other was 18 rated and
it was good that most of those in Basildon’s Empire Cinema were (as always)
nearer 68!
Act III was a sex-workers’ ‘cattle market’ in a red-light
district somewhere – I didn’t entirely understand how this was relevant –
and finally the Act IV road to Louisiana was a huge and realistic
half-demolished flyover emerging from a billboard backdrop of Utah’s
Monument Valley. In the demanding final scene, when Manon and Des Grieux are
dying in the wilderness a dishevelled Kristīne Opolais was again riveting.
She sang most of her impassioned aria ‘Sola, perduta, abbandonata’ while
lying on her side, struggling to sit up. Her singing, of course, had a
desperation to it because of her character’s plight but it remained
intrinsically beautiful. Ms Opolais must have been grateful for the opera to
end so that she could soon put on some clothes and maybe feel fully dressed
for the first time in a few hours!
Antonio Pappano is at his best in
Puccini and brought out – with pliant clarity – all the Italianate ardour
and symphonic sweep of Manon Lescaut through a fresh, lush, and wonderfully
shaded performance from his reliable orchestra. The Royal Opera’s Chorus
made their own vivid – and crisply articulated – contribution when needed in
Act I and especially as Manon and her fellow female prisoners head for
exile. Maurizio Muraro was suitably cast as an obese, lascivious, Geronte
whose power comes from his ability to dole out large denomination Euro
notes. Benjamin Hulett’s bright tenor voice made more of the Brazilian
football shirt-wearing student, Edmondo, than possibly there is in the score
for him. I suspect Jonathan Kent’s production was devised with the cinema
audience – and future DVD release – in mind and worked fantastically well on
that level. No one will have complained – depending on what pleases you – at
the endless close-ups of Ms Opolais or Mr Kaufmann during Jonathan Haswell’s
impeccable direction for the screen. My final praise goes to the Empire
Cinema in Basildon for their absolutely start-of-the-art ‘natural’ sound and
splendid projection – for most of the live relay it was as though I was in
the Royal Opera House sitting at the very front of the stalls. Bryn Terfel
was a naturally engaging host for the live transmission and the interviews
have sensibly retreated backstage from the Paul Hamlyn Hall and it is
conspicuous how few people are there compared to the overstaffed
Metropolitan Opera!
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