Massenet's 'Manon' returns to Rome, Music & Vision 20 giugno

Young Eroticism in the Third French Republic
Massenet's 'Manon' returns to Rome,
reviewed by GIUSEPPE PENNISI

Twenty six years after its last series of performances, Jules Massenet's Manon is back at Rome's Teatro dell'Opera in a co-production with Montecarlo Opéra. The production (sets, costumes, staging) is clearly thought to be widely circulated. Thus, it is highly possible that it will be seen in other European theatres. The long opéra comique (two hours and 45 minutes, in Pierre Monteux's historical recording -- one of the very few to be unabridged) is divided in two parts: the first and the second acts and, after a half an hour intermission, the remaining three acts. The spoken parts in between musical numbers have, as intended, an orchestral accompaniment, as if in a melologue, there are a few touches of grand opéra (with the ballet not only at the Third Act -- the Cours de la Reine, but also in the background of the Fourth Act in the gambling room at the Hotel de Transilvanie, where one can feel the smell of Proust's brothels). The opera requires eighteen soloists, a vast orchestra ; thus a much larger cast than in the traditional opéra-comique. And this is one of the reasons why opera managers are careful before staging it.

Massimo Giordano as Le Chevalier des Grieux in Act 3 of Massenet's 'Manon' at Teatro dell'Opera in Rome. Photo © 2010 Corrado Maria Falsini
In this production, the six scenes are framed in a single stage set -- a grayish eighteenth century hall with huge mirrors, neo-classical columns and a gravure touch -- with a few period projected paintings and props (including references to Montecarlo Palais Garnier). We see the carriage station in Amiens, the lovers' apartment in Paris (where 'la petite table' is replaced by an oversize bed and an equally oversize mirror to show the young lovers' sexual play), the Cours de la Reine, the St Sulpice Church, the Hotel de Transilvanie, and the road to Le Havre. The sets, signed by Paola Moro, are designed to take the production around in long tours to several theatres, not necessarily only in France and Italy. Also the four hundred costumes are, by and large, adapted and refurbished by the Teatro dell'Opera tailors from the huge stock (of 50-60,000 costumes) available in the theater's warehouse. A wise decision always, but especially in times of severe financial crisis. The stage director, Jean-Louis Grinda, gives a fast pace to the action and provides tension to an opera generally considered as a series of flowery melodies where good taste and technical skills counterbalance the tendency, in several parts of the libretto, towards excessive sentimentality. Tradition is married with a bit of innovation -- the use of projections and explicit erotic references.

Massimo Giordano as Le Chevalier des Grieux in Act 3 Scene 2 of Massenet's 'Manon' at Teatro dell'Opera in Rome. Photo © 2010 Corrado Maria Falsini
Before getting into the 17 June 2010 performance, where this new production was unveiled by the theatre and reviewed for Music & Vision, it is useful to remember that Jules Massenet was the most popular composer of the Third French Republic. He turned out some twenty operas. In most of them, he was combining eroticism and religion into a saleable commodity for the bourgeois audience of a fast industrializing France where a wealthy bourgeoisie was replacing a decadent aristocracy. This Third Republic audience loved to go to confession and ask forgiveness after plenty of sinning -- especially sexual sinning! In spite of what is normally written and said, even though the main lines of the plot are the same, Massenet's Manon has little to do with L'Histoire du Chevalier Des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Antoine-François Prévost (who was a 'libertine' writer of the age of Enlightenment and, personally, was quite a libertine and a womanizer himself). In the novel, the protagonist is a cynical young aristocrat with an easy use of the sword -- he kills a couple of men -- and ready to prostitute his girlfriend to the Governor of Louisiana and his retinue; on her own account, Manon is quite happy to move from bed to bed and to try a large variety of erotic expressions with a vast gamut of men.

Annick Massis as Manon Lescaut in Act 3 Scene 1 of Massenet's 'Manon' at Teatro dell'Opera in Rome. Photo © 2010 Corrado Maria Falsini
Nothing of this in Massenet's Manon, as adapted for the taste of the Third Republic audience, by Massenet and his librettists (Henri Miellhac and Philippe Gille). In the opera, a young nobleman falls in love with a charming but quite accessible young woman from a lower social class. When eventually she leaves him to pursue her plans to use her wares and her skills to become wealthy, the gentle boy decides to become a priest. She entices him back by visiting him and the St Sulpice seminary where her insinuating phrases artfully contrast with austere religious chants. From there on, the road is set: gambling, stealing, being caught by the authorities. He can be saved by his family position and money, but she is condemned to become a prostitute in a brothel in the Louisiana colony and dies, in his arms, on her way to Le Havre. A quintessential hypocritical French Third Republic mélo, where Proust is just around the corner.

A scene from Act 4 of Massenet's 'Manon' at Teatro dell'Opera in Rome. Photo © 2010 Corrado Maria Falsini
Naturally, both the drama and music emphasize the ambiguity between eroticism and mysticism, the sincere young love (and young approach to eros) and the luxurious life of a corrupt aristocracy, the destitution of Manon and the 'good boy's evergreen kindness' of Des Grieux. The mirrors help the audience to focus on the ambiguity between eroticism and mysticism. The orchestra, conducted by a veteran of the score such as Alain Guingal, keeps the delicate balance between sentimentalism, drama and mere descriptive moments very well. Strings have a prevalent role in the orchestration, especially in the 'mnemonic' (to recall situations and /or feelings) leitmotive (very distant, of course, from Wagner's poetic). The Teatro dell'Opera orchestra, chorus and corps de ballet did very well in this opéra comique with a flair of grand-opéra.

Massimo Giordano as Le Chevalier des Grieux and Annick Massis as Manon Lescaut in the final scene from Act 5 of Massenet's 'Manon' at Teatro dell'Opera in Rome. Photo © 2010 Corrado Maria Falsini
Both Annick Massis and Massimo Giordano were giving début performances in their respective protagonists' roles. Even though Annick Massis is no longer of Manon's age and performed despite being ill, she is a soprano assoluto very well suited to the part; her emission is perfect, with a lovely G natural. Although in his forties, Giordano has a boyish look. He is a lyric tenor with an excellent fraseggio, a clear timbre, a long acute and perfect French diction, as well as an effective mezza voce. The rest of the large cast also performed at a high level.
Copyright © 20 June 2010 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy

JULES MASSENET
MANON
ROME
TEATRO DELL'OPERA
FRANCE
ITALY
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