GIACOMO PUCCINI
MANON LESCAUT
CONTENTS
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4
SYNOPSIS P.
6
THE MYTH OF MANON IAN BURTON P.
10
THE MANON SYNDROME INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT CARSEN
P.
20
AN ITALIAN TRISTAN CHRISTIAN SPRINGER P.
24
THE WAY OF CALAMITOUS TALENTS ROTRAUD A. PERNER P.
30
16
KORNGOLD’S MISJUDGEMENT ANDREAS LÁNG
THE METAMORPHOSIS OF MANON NORBERT ABELS
IMPRINT
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GIACOMO PUCCINI
MANON LESCAUT DRAMMA LIRICO in four acts Text based on ABBÉ PRÉVOST
ORCHESTRA
STAGE MUSIC
3 flutes (3rd doubles as piccolo) 2 oboes / 1 cor anglais 2 clarinets / bass clarinet 2 bassoons / 4 horns 3 trumpets / 3 trombones bass tuba / timpani / percussion celeste / harp violin I / violin II viola / cello / double bass flute / cornet sleigh bells bell in G / drum
AUTOGRAPH Ricordi Archive Milan WORLD PREMIÈRE 1 FEBRUARY 1893 Teatro Regio, Turin FIRST PERFORMANCE 15 October 1923 Wiener Staatsoper DURATION
2 H 30 MIN
INCL. 1 INTERMISSION
MANON LESCAUT
SYNOPSIS Manon Lescaut, a beautiful young girl from the provinces, is being taken to a convent by her brother Lescaut. Des Grieux, a student, falls in love with her at first sight. Geronte, a rich old man, is also attracted by Manon and plans to abduct her. Des Grieux is warned of Geronte’s plot by his friend Edmondo. Des Grieux confesses to Manon that he is in love with her and the young couple run off together. Lescaut assures Geronte that Ma non will soon tire of a life of poverty with Des Grieux: it will not be long before she turns to Geronte and his wealth. Lescaut’s plan has been successful: Manon has left Des Grieux in favour of a life of luxury with Geronte. She admits to her brother that in spite of her newfound wealth, she misses Des Grieux. Geronte shows off Manon to some of his friends. Left alone, Manon is startled when Des Grieux suddenly appears. He reproaches her bitterly for having deserted him. She begs his forgiveness and he falls under her spell again. The two lo vers are reunited passionately when Geronte suddenly returns. Manon laughs at him and he leaves, threatening revenge. Des Grieux urges Manon to escape immediately, but she is reluc tant to abandon the luxuries of her new life. Lescaut suddenly appears and informs them that Geronte intends to have Manon imprisoned. Manon frantically attempts to gather up jewelry, money and clothes, but she takes too long: Geronte returns and has her arrested. Des Grieux and Lescaut are planning to rescue Manon, but their plan fails. Manon’s humiliation and disgrace are made public: she is to be deported. Des Grieux remains obsessed by her and begs to be allowed to go with her. Manon is dying in the bad lands. She begs Des Grieux to try and find some water. Left alone, she reviews her life, acknowledging the mistakes she has made. When Des Grieux returns, she finally tells him that she loves him before dying in his arms.
Previous pages: ASMIK GRIGORIAN as MANON LESCAUT
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GIACOMO PUCCINI
ALMIGHTY GOD TOUCHED ME WITH HIS LITTLE FINGER AND SAID TO ME: “WRITE FOR THE THEATRE; BUT MARK YOU, WRITE ONLY FOR THE THEATRE.” – AND I HAVE OBEYED THE SUPREME COMMAND. 5
IAN BURTON
THE MYTH OF MANON Puccini’s Manon Lescaut (1893) is a work that is typical of the age, indeed even of the year in which it was written. The Eu ropean spirit of the age prevailing in the theatre had left behind the naturalism of 1870 and 1880. The new style was sym bolic realism, which was entirely charac teristic for the works written by Ibsen in the middle and at the end of his career, and also for the plays of Strindberg and Chekhov. Rococo was in fashion again. Au brey Beardsley illustrated Pope’s The Rape of the Lock and Congreve’s Way of the World; Oscar Wilde rewrote the so cial satires of the Restoration period; art nouveau painters and architects looked back to the age of Louis XV to find in spiration in his luxury; after a century of neglect, Mozart was popular again; the psychological subtleties of French novels of the eighteenth century – by Diderot, Rousseau, Prévost, and above all Chloderlos de Laclos – were in great demand again. It was not by chance that with its many self-reflecting facets the Rococo world was viewed with enormous ad miration. This world offered the artists and authors of the 1890s a refuge where they could turn their back on the largely naturalistic ethos that prevailed in the second half of the nineteenth century. Teetering on the brink of a catastrophic social revolution, they fled into the sparkling, mythical world of pureness and immorality, desire and passion. Prévost’s novel was extremely popular
at the end of the eighteenth century, a popularity that endured throughout the nineteenth century, indeed even into the beginning of the twentieth century. Hundreds of illustrated editions of the story, opera and stage versions, and later also films, ensured that the tragic story of the immoral fortune seeker and the chevalier who worshipped her would se cure a place amongst popular traditions and myths. The ultimate achievement was cer tainly the fact that her name was used for the most luscious of all sweets filled with cream – the Belgian “Manon” chocolate! Zola’s Thérèse, Ibsen’s Doll’s House and Strindberg’s Miss Julie are generally re garded as the masterpieces of natural istic drama. When translated into the language of opera, we have the verismo of Charpentier’s Louise, Mascagni’s Ca valleria rusticana and Leoncavallo’s Pagli acci. But so-called naturalistic or verismo works contain many elements that do not normally belong in the field of natu ralism. These elements are symbolism, poetic metaphor and innuendo, invoking the transcendental, the supernatural and the world of dreams and myths. The 1890s, when Puccini wrote his first masterpieces, were also characte rized by the rediscovery and immersion in the sources of myths and religions. Nietzsche’s early criticism of Wagner, The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music, draws on ancient Greek myths and theories; Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough offers the most distant
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THE MYTH OF MANON
past to the present. The so-called dé cadence of European literature and cul ture offers countless examples by poets and composers who used mythic arche types in their works. Several of these archetypes were the allumeuse, such as Carmen, the androgyne, such as Dorian Gray, and the cool and perverse girls that Maeterlinck, Barbey d’Aurevilly and Wilde put on the stage and for whom Salomé is an example. From Manon Lescaut to Turandot, Puccini made extensive use of these ar chetypical characters, and in different ways, while his passionate musical lyri cism breathed inner emotions into the stereotypes. It was also in the 1890s that Carl Jung presented his theory of archetypes. In it, he built on the study of the hid den psychological life that Freud had conducted before him. In The Romantic Agony, Mario Praz describes the most important archetypes and the extent and diverseness of their use in the litera ture, plays and operas of this period. Puccini’s use of the “Myth of Manon”, the perverse and avaricious, coquette, a mix of a carefree young girl and worldly- wise aventurière, and the emphasis that in a sequence of four decisive moments he places on the mythical portrayal of the story rather than a naturalistic gradually evolving account, such as Mas senet gave, is a remarkable achievement in light of the problems he encountered with the development of the final libretto. The confusion that arose with the writing of the libretto – no less than seven people worked on it, include Puc cini and Ricordi himself – is probably due to the fact that Puccini, not for the first time, wanted to have an active role in the writing as well as in the dramatic and musical elements of the opera. He
constantly confused the different sec tions and repeatedly returned the work of a writer, to have it replaced by another writer. He saw the whole project from a constantly shifting perspective, like a painter who keeps leaving his painting alone, only to return to it later. What Puccini wanted to emphasize was the timeless and mythical side of the story. In a letter he wrote in September 1890 to Ricordi, he mentions the “mythical entrance of Géronte”, one of the ele ments that he wants to secure before the libretto is processed by Oliva. In the final libretto, this clearly corresponds to the abduction of Proserpina by Pluto, an ironic footnote sung by Edmondo. Vecchietto amabile, incipriato Pluton, sei tu! La tua Proserpina di resisterti forse avra virtu? And so Manon is compared not only to Persephone, the god of spring – while Geronte is the god of death – but later also to the god of love herself, Venus, Ciprigna. This comparison is drawn by the guests of Geronte, of whom they sing the praises with great flattery. Now Geronte has become Mercury, also a god who is associated with death. Evviva i fortunati inammorati! Ve’ Mercurio e Ciprigna! Con amore e dovizia Oh! qui letizia Con amore e dovizia leggiadramente alligna! These references to the Greek and Ro man myths can be found throughout the text and often help to create an ironic Rococo ambience. The sum of all these references ensures that Manon above all is imbued with additional lustre and fascination, which further amplify the contrast to her humiliation at the end of her life.
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Following page: SCENE
DIRECTOR ROBERT CARSEN IN AN INTERVIEW WITH PETER BLAHA
THE MANON SYNDROME pb
Prévost’s novel Manon Lescaut inspired not just Puccini but also Auber, Massenet and Henze to write operas. What it is about this piece that so fascinates composers? rc Manon Lescaut is a fascinating archetype, one that we also find in other well-known characters, such as Pandora, Semele and Lulu. It tells us a great deal about human weaknesses and passions. Manon is a young girl who wants every thing, thereby incurring guilt. But this guilt is also brimming with innocence. Manon is young and beautiful, every one desires her, and because of this she thinks that all doors are open to her. However, what she doesn’t under stand she is what is doing to her fellow humans. Additionally, we live in an age in which everyone wants everything. We feel compelled to look young and beautiful, and people try to fool us into believing that if we possessed goods that serve as status symbols, we could be even happier. We might call this the Manon syndrome. But this Manon syn drome does not by any means imply that we are no longer lovable. This is pre
cisely what Puccini described so won derfully. Manon craves luxury, but she is not a monster. She is still capable of love. Furthermore, she is virtually seduced by her environment to reach out for luxury. She quickly becomes famous, which certainly has parallels to the current day. In our superficial society where we are constantly eyeing each other, time and again people are drawn from nothing to become stars and then before you know it they have lost everything again. The tragedy of Manon’s story is that she only realizes at the end where life has taken her, and that she never learned to regard love as a precious asset. pb Does Manon Lescaut appeal so much to us today because we live in an age of materialism in which – the flip-side of the coin – our desire for spirituality is particularly great? rc To be sure, although it should also be said that many people who pretend to be in favour of spiritual values are in fact driven by concrete material interests. I think Manon Lescaut makes us aware of another conflict, that of money ver sus love. You can buy a great deal with
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THE MANON SYNDROME
money, which is why it is so fascinating for many people. However, in the case of love you are entirely dependent on yourself, love cannot be bought. Ma non is indescribably beautiful. But she is lacking in self-esteem; she believes she needs all the luxury, the expensive dresses and shoes, the jewellery and perfume, to be valuable in the eyes of her fellow humans. True love does not ask about such outward things, it is pre cisely the opposite. It does not ask what I want, but what the loved person wants. Manon is so preoccupied with herself that she forgets Des Grieux. To be sure, this kind of behaviour is all too human. We come across true selfless love very infrequently. For me, Manon Lescaut is a very modern piece, not least because of its dramatic composition. pb Because it doesn’t tell the story without interruption, but singles out individual events in the four acts, individual images from the life of Manon Lescaut? rc Exactly for this reason. In the four acts, we see Manon as she was initially, then what has become of her, followed by what people do to her, and finally how she dies. The piece has often been criticised because of its breaks and jumps. I love it for precisely this reason: this is specifically where its strength lies. Puccini was forced to condense the in dividual scenes significantly, which in turn meant that he relayed a great deal of information in a short time. He never repeats himself. He is a true theatre com poser, he always has the stage in mind. pb You staged Manon Lescaut once before, within the context of your Puccini cycle in Antwerp. How does your current approach to the work differ from back then?
rc When I staged Manon Lescaut in Antwerp, I was guided by the atmos phere of the 18th century in which Pré vost’s novel was not only written but in which it also takes place. This time I decided to locate the action in the pre sent day, which makes a huge difference. Naturally I am not reading Manon Les caut entirely afresh, but when studying the work again other things struck me more than before, some emphases have shifted. The libretto is problematic be cause so many writers were involved in its development. Seven writers grappled with it, with the result that it was diffi cult to establish a common theme and focus the work as a whole. Act 1 in par ticular is problematic. It is written like a film script, where close-up and wide angle are alternated all the time. This act presents an incredible amount of detail. The large number of authors is certainly the reason why the publisher Ricordi left the names of the librettists completely off the score and the piano reduction. That was extremely unusual. pb Nevertheless, Puccini manages to interlock the disparate individual scenes with certain musical motifs, indeed to span them all with an extensive arc. rc There is no question that in terms of the music the entire opera is a master- stroke. There isn’t a single bar that is not inspired. Although still a relatively young composer, which he was when he wrote Manon Lescaut, Puccini had already achieved great mastery of his art and developed an unmistakable style of his own. His music is “sexy”, full of ero ticism and passion, deliberately playing on the strong contrasts between deeply felt emotions and superficial glamour. pb Criticism was also expressed of Act 4, which is essentially a sin-
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DIRECTOR ROBERT CARSEN IN AN INTERVIEW
gle long duet between Manon and Des Grieux incorporating Manon’s dying aria. It was frequently extensively cut; Toscanini was the first to promote the uncut version. According to the libretto, this act takes place in a desert near New Orleans. We have the feeling that the actual location is unimportant. At this point, Manon and Des Grieux are beyond time and space. rc Manon Lescaut is a didactic play about morals, not in the style of Brecht, but certainly in the way that many 18th century plays, novels, and pictures set out to teach a lesson about moral be haviour. We need only think of Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones or his Joseph An drews, Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders, Voltaire’s Candide, or, in the field of graphic satire, of William Hogarth, whose paintings were the model for Igor Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress. Prévost’s novel also fol lows this tradition, which means that a certain distance is needed – again, not in the style of Brecht, who used fractu red narrative, but such that the author is not slavishly subject to natural realism. If this were made a criterion, the play would be full of errors, such as: there is no desert around New Orleans, as the libretto would have us believe; there is only marshland. It is more important to depict the emotional stages of Manon’s journey than it is to show the physical geography. She is a country girl whom fate has brought to the city. Here there are countless temptations that she can not withstand. In the second act, we see her in possession of all the seductive things that she wanted to have. In the third act, she has been humiliated, na mely by the public.
This is an incredible scene. Puccini had a tremendous gift for transforming cer tain forms of sadomasochism into mu sic. In Turandot, Liù is tormented, Scar pia has Cavaradossi physically tortured, and Tosca mentally tortured, and similar scenes are also found in La fanciulla del West. In Manon Lescaut, Manon is humi liated, and even Des Grieux’ attitude is not entirely free of masochism. In Act 4, I see the desert as a symbol, as an alle gory for the place where Manon’s failed life has brought her. Only now does she understand what she has done to Des Grieux, where she is responsible for all this, what her share of the blame is. pb Before your Puccini cycle in Antwerp, it was already being talked about. When you concentrate on the work of one composer in a cycle of this kind, what insights, what experience do you gain? rc Puccini was not a composer I counted amongst my favourite from the outset. But then I discovered his musical and dramatic qualities and had to admit that he is much more modern than I had originally thought. Naturally he was rooted in the Italian tradition of his day, but he was always looking to the future. You can hear this in Manon Lescaut, his third opera, but it is the first of his ope ras where his musical signature is fully developed. One common theme through all his works is his preference for strong women. I thought at first that Puccini’s characters were all just victims. They are, in part, of course, but they are neverthe less strong and know exactly what they want. In La bohème for example Mimì takes the initiative: she knocks at Rudol fo’s door and initiates the contact. And she gets what she wants. Or Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly: despite the strict rules of traditional Japanese society, she
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THE MANON SYNDROME
decides for herself and enters into a mar riage with Pinkerton, whose infidelity ultimately destroys her. We must also see Manon Lescaut in this vein. She too gets what she wants. They are strong, in dependent women. It was Puccini who helped these strong, independent wo men break through on the opera stage, precisely at the time when the women of Europe were taking up the fight for their rights and their equal status. pb You have staged not just a Puccini cycle, but also a Janáček cycle and a Verdi-Shakespeare cycle. What appeals to you in particular about cycles? rc I value being able to work closely with colleagues on a project, and cycles are especially well suited for this. Natu rally you get a better feeling for a com poser when you work on several of his works. When we developed the Puccini cycle, it was not our intention to reduce the richness of his works to a few paral lels or shared features, but on the con trary allowed ourselves to be surprised by this diversity, this richness of expres sion. I had a wonderful partner for this in the conductor Silvio Varviso, and now with Seiji Ozawa who took our Bohème from Antwerp to Tokyo for the Youth Opera Festival. pb Taking an overview of your productions to date, it is apparent
that you are not a director who imposes his personal style on everything, regardless of prove nance, but you always choose the work in question and its special characteristics as the starting point for your directing work. Is that impression correct? rc That impression is the greatest compliment that anyone could give me. That is exactly what I try to do. I am a storyteller, but I do not tell my own sto ries but those conceived by librettists and set to music by composers. I try to delve into a story and find the answers to two questions. Firstly, why did the composer choose this story in particular, why did he want to tell us this story and no other? I want to know what was new, surprising, perhaps also shocking when the world première of this opera was given. We should not forget that every major composer had something new in mind, had a vision that was ahead of his day, and he wanted to express this vision with the help of this story, no matter whether old and well-known or perhaps even completely new. And secondly, what does this story mean today, what relevance does it have to people today? If I believed that the story had no rele vance for us today, that it was at most of historical interest, I would leave it be.
The interview took place on the occasion of the 2005 première.
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Following page: KS ANNA NETREBKO as MANON LESCAUT
GIACOMO PUCCINI
I LOVE THE LITTLE THINGS, AND I CAN AND WANT TO MAKE THE MUSIC EXCLUSIVELY OF THE LITTLE THINGS, IF THEY ARE TRUE, PASSIONATE AND HUMAN, AND GO TO THE HEART.
NORBERT ABELS
THE META MORPHOSIS OF MANON TRANSFORMATION OF A STORY IN 220 YEARS Prévost’s Manon enjoyed huge popu larity in the 19th century. Alexandre Dumas referred expressly to fact that Manon Lescaut was a model for Mar guerite Gautier, his Lady of the Camel lias. “She is described so precisely that I have the feeling I knew her.” Eugene Scribe wrote the libretti both for Halé vy’s three-act ballet Manon Lescaut and also for Auber’s opéra comique by the same name, also in three acts (world première 1856). Massenet twice tried his hand at the same story, collaborating with three librettists. In 1884, the five-act opera Manon was premièred. Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille wrote the libret to. Georges Boyer wrote the libretto for Massenet’s one-act opéra comique Le Portrait de Manon (world première 8 May 1894). Other musical adaptations of the story were penned by Pio Bellini, Michael William Balfe, A.A. Lopez and Mathias Strebinger. In Auber’s opera, the moralising middle-class perspective comes to the fore. Scribe’s libretto turns the chevalier into a kind of Bohemian or – as Albert
Gier wrote – a “middle-class son from a good family who has fallen out with his family and must now try to mana ge without his monthly allowance”. In Auber, he is almost a minor character who is not even given his own aria. Manon’s sin seems to lie less in the exertion of her body than the senseless squandering of her capital, which ulti mately turns out to be her nemesis; and that in Louisiana of all places, about which Scribe expresses no criticism for its economic order based on slavery. Massenet’s Manon stays closer to Pré vost’s source story. Here too, the focus is entirely on Manon, whose tragedy is the inconsistency between selfless affection and narcissistic need for ad miration. The Conte Des Grieux, from a respectable old family, represents an anomaly in the courtesans’ world of poor people climbing the social ladder, based on complete utilitarianism. Cio-Cio-San, Minnie, Magda, Liù, Mimì or Manon: Puccini knew that the great heroes and immortal figures are important to historians but much less so to artists. This was why he wrote:
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THE METAMORPHOSIS OF MANON
“I do not write the music of great things; I feel the small things and love to ad dress only those. That’s why Manon appealed to me; because she was a girl with heart and nothing more.” The last vestiges of a lecturingeducational attitude have been erased. Interest is now centred on the small, insignificant creature, the lovable sin ner whose unparalleled charm was the undoing of the milieu theory still com mended at the end of the 19th century, a representative of “simple love”, in the words of Maupassant created specifi cally to love and be loved: “She tumbled headlong into love, just as one tumbled into a river to drown oneself...” The fictional characters that natu ralism and verismo assigned to the de personalized female vamps at the turn of the century, the stereotypical femme fatale, Strindberg’s half woman or Bau delaire’s lascivious woman with straw berry mouth and musk perspiration were the stereotypes of femininity at the borders between maidenhood and erotic gratification. “I am nothing but a poor little thing, unknown and worth nothing”, Minnie, the girl of the golden West, sings almost programmatically. Manon Lescaut, who dies of exhaustion in an endless bleak landscape, expresses similar senti ments, albeit without recognizing the tragic task of the role assigned to her: “My beauty has brought me nothing but misery. (...) My guilt will soon be forgotten, but my love will not die.” To date, the novel about Des Grieux and Manon Lescaut has been followed – for example by the film Irma la Douce with Shirley MacLaine – by numerous new adaptations: a total of eleven as musical dramatic works, four ballets, one operetta and six operas. These
include the compositions by Auber (1856), Massenet (1884 and 1894) and Puccini (world première in Turin at the Teatro Regio on 1 February 1893). Fol lowing the example of Dumas’ lady of the Camellias and Verdi’s Violetta, Mas senet and Puccini focused attention on the female lead character, her initial ambivalence, the dialectic of money and passion, possession and love have now been sacrificed to the myth of the sacred prostitute. The hagiography of prostitution became the aesthetic stereotype of the epoch. Little of Prévost’s poem was pre served in Puccini’s libretto. The exact text listing text sources looks like a picture of a market ridden with rivalry, journalistic utter chaos. “Poetry by Rug gero Leoncavallo, Marco Praga, Dome nico Oliva, Luigi Illica, Giuseppe Gia cosa, Giulio Ricordi, Giuseppe Adami and Giacomo Puccini, after the libretto by Henri Meilhac and Philippe Emile François Gille for the opéra Manon (Pa ris 1884) by Jules Massenet, after the” – and now we finally reach the Abbé from the eighteenth century – “Histoire du chevalier Des Grieux et de Manon Les caut.” Prévost’s language of love makes its way only into Puccini’s music. In Sternheim’s drama Manon Les caut published in 1921, Des Grieux and Manon engage in long discussions, argue about the greed of society, the counterpart of which seems to be brash brotherly love. Only in this late-Expres sionist version are Manon and the Che valier subjects with equal rights. It is reserved for Manon to say, as she flees and shortly before her death: “Against all the appeals of the world – what a world, Des Grieux! – time and again we have flown together, strong birds, and have become more deeply united,
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THE METAMORPHOSIS OF MANON
and finally our eyes see nothing but the image of the other.” The image of the other in their eyes. With the imagery of this moment, Hen ze’s opera Boulevard Solitude closes. It is precisely in this motif that the triste, existential experience of nothing sur faces, like the one that dominated the concept of life of intellectuals after the Second World War. Two hundred and twenty years elap sed between the Manon Lescaut written by French libertine Prévost, who was constantly entangled in scandalous af fairs, and the Manon libretto of Ger man author Grete Weil, who narrowly escaped the Holocaust. When she star ted work on the libretto for Henze’s first major opera, her focus was not like that of the Abbé on “various observations on the incomprehensibility of the fe male character.” Neither such ominous gender character nor the individual na ture of their modern Manon Lescaut in terested the librettist and the composer. Manon is part of the shadowy, immo bile world of other characters in the opera, seeming almost lifeless, in rigid typological fixation. Only the student Armand – driven ever further into the isolation of the big city wasteland by his growing awareness of the existen tial deficit of meaning – seems to be a personality. Expressive monologues are reserved for him alone. The mono logue written in prose at the beginning of the scene in the bar reveals ironic dis tance to his own downfall in the world of drugs: “Here is the money. Change
it into the matchless dream substance that transforms the rotting world into a comfortable hell for me.” Only after this, with the entrance of the other characters, who express themselves in conventional rhyme, does the break between the subjective system of perception of the protago nist and the stereotypical automatism of the other characters become down right graphic. At the very end, Grete Weil and Hans Werner Henze succeed entirely without the American desert of the novel and also without Manon’s last quivering words. There is no way out of the city, since it has long since embed ded itself in the inescapable topography of the soul. No vast plain, but grey prison walls ap pear. Prévost’s Chevalier was able to feel her love at the moment when Manon gave up her spirit. In Boulevard Solitude however, Manon is surrounded by other fettered girls and escorted by policemen, she avoids even looking at Armand. And the student Armand? He sings: “I wish I were blind, for the world is lost to me.” Armand is a truly exis tentialist hero. Manon’s looking away and Armand’s wish to be blind are the end. There is no longer any love, becau se the secret of the moment no longer exists. We remember Sartre’s words from L’Être et le Néant: “The look of the other forms my body in its nakedness, gives birth to it, shapes it, creates it as it is, sees it as I see it. The other holds a secret: the secret of what I am.”
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ASMIK GRIGORIAN as MANON LESCAUT
CHRISTIAN SPRINGER
AN ITALIAN TRISTAN WHO IS PUCCINIS DES GRIEUX? Manon Lescaut and Turandot, Mimì and Madama Butterfly, Minnie and Tosca, Suor Angelica and Liù are not just the names of female characters in Puccini’s operas (in some cases also the titles) but destinies that the composer identified with and with which in turn his name is associated. It is significant that of Puccini’s twelve works for the stage no less than seven are named af ter the protagonist: Manon Lescaut, To sca, Madama Butterfly, La fanciulla del West, La rondine (an allegory on Mag da, the female lead role, who is com pared to a swallow), Suor Angelica and Turandot. Only two of his operas are named for the male protagonist: Edgar and Gianni Schicchi. Puccini was known to have a fond ness for women – in art as in life – which may give rise to the impression that the composer and his librettists (whom he badgered and tormented with requests and ideas more than most of his col leagues) did not have much interest in his male characters. At first glance, this seems understandable, with the result that some male roles in Puccini‘s operas seemed pale, one-dimensional, unim portant, disposable, and dull. For an example, we need only look at the role of Pinkerton (Madama Butterfly) to see where this idea originated. Although
this may be an extreme case, there can still be no doubt that Puccini had litt le affection for those with lower voices (baritone and bass, but also mezzosoprano and alto). While there are interesting roles for baritones, such as the love-hungry villains Scarpia (Tosca) and Jack Rance (La fanciulla del West), the grim Mi chele (Il tabarro), the shrewd Florenti ne inspired by Dante Gianni Schicchi or the rather petit-bourgeois Marcello (La bohème), the selection of bass roles is sparse: the small roles of Timur (Turan dot) and Colline (La bohème) are the only halfway dignified representatives of the Fach that go beyond episodic ap pearances. The pickings in the mezzosoprano and alto Fach are equally slim. Puccini did not pen a single significant role for this vocal range, if you disre gard Tigrana in Edgar (which is seldom performed), and if Suzuki (Madama Butterfly), Frugola (Il tabarro) and the Princess (Suor Angelica) are not upgra ded to lead characters. A brief look at the lead roles in Manon Lescaut focusing on the see mingly so neglected male roles may therefore be of some interest. This ex ploration can be restricted to Puccini’s heroes, Prévost’s novel and Massenet’s characters, although it should not be
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AN ITALIAN TRISTAN
forgotten that with the composition of his first great success Puccini was at the beginning of his career, whereas Mas senet, 16 years his senior, was at the peak of his prowess. (One year after the world première of Puccini’s opera about Manon, Massenet returned to the sub ject of his success and composed the beautiful one-act opera Le Portrait de Manon.) Puccini’s opera does not move into the terrain of naturalism and the dra matic formulae of verismo; rather, the composer employs an expressive adap tability of uncertain and abstract emo tions: he does not try to mould cha racters and make them plausible, but draws psychograms in the moments when conflict arises. To be sure, Des Grieux and Manon are lovers. But when does Puccini pre sent them as such? Unlike Prévost and Massenet, never! Puccini does not even allow audiences to see the brief idyll between the two of them after their flight from Amiens. When Manon and Des Grieux come together, tragedy is always involved, we consistently see the two of them in flight. This aspect of the relationship is (over)emphasized, the lovers are never shown as happily united. Puccini revealingly eliminates the second act, planned to be “idyllic”, “full of love, spring and youth” (letter to Illica, spring 1891), because “Massenet must be avoided at all costs”. Puccini must resort to the problema tic tool (especially for audiences who do not speak Italian) of having parts of the action narrated by one of the cha racters. Although it seems plausible to have Lescaut relate that he is accompa nying his sister to the convent (the in consistency of the friendship with the sister’s seducer in Act 2 was later sof
tened with a dialogue with Geronte in Act 1), it is perplexing that the couple’s flight is only vaguely justified with an off-hand remark in Manon’s aria “Sola, perduta, abbandonata” in Act 4: “Ah! di sangue s’è macchiato” (“It is stained with blood.”). Only in Prévost do we find the ex planation for this vague allusion: Des Grieux fought a duel with and killed a certain Synnelet, nephew of the go vernor of Louisiana (the reason for the duel was of course Manon), necessita ting his escape during which Manon perished. To tighten up his five-act opera with numerous scenes, Massenet had Ma non die on her way to being deported, which offered Puccini the opportunity of returning to Prévost’s original. While Puccini achieved a master-stroke with Act 3 – composed last, and an insignifi cant episode in the novel – Act 4 seems dramatically weak. The mature Pucci ni would scarcely have configured an entire act as a monumental duet while allowing the soprano to die in the de sert (near New Orleans!) of thirst and exhaustion while the tenor goes off to look for water, thereby giving his dying beloved the change to sing an aria. The use of a two-part intermezzo sin fonico (“Imprisonment” and “The jour ney to Le Havre”) that clearly has roots in the intermezzo from Cavalleria rusti cana and which is preceded by a quote from Prévost’s novel must be seen as a tool to offset weaknesses in the libretto. One problem with writing the libretto was certainly the autobiographic nature of Prévost’s novel, a story in a story, pre sented exclusively from a man’s view point – through the eyes of Manon’s lover – and a psychological study of the development of a young nobleman.
21
CHRISTIAN SPRINGER
In Prévost the Chevalier is very com plex: “... A conflicted character, a mix of virtues and vices, an eternal con tradiction between good intentions and bad actions”, as he is described in the “Notes from the author”, the in troduction to the novel. The psychological depth of the young man indicated here, often re miniscent of Goethe’s Werther with his self-pity, is missing both in Masse net and Puccini. In both these works, he is a sentimental (on occasion with tearful intensity) lover; in Massenet a youthful, inexperienced, sensitive aristocrat who grows in colourfulness through his foray into priesthood; in Puccini a frivolously trilling (“Tra voi, belle, brune e bionde”) romantically effusive (“Donna non vidi mai”) sou thern European who has a tendency towards uncontrollable hysterical outbursts and can be self-abasing (“Guardate, pazzo son”). But who Puccini’s Des Grieux is the audience never learns. Apart from his social position and career (Che valier or penniless student) we know nothing about him. To be sure, Des Grieux asks Manon at the very begin ning of the opera about herself, and she answers in great detail, but the only time that he is willing to answer one of her questions, he gets no fur ther than his name. He is prevented from any further explanation by Les caut, who calls his sister to come into the inn. From that point on, no one takes any interest in his previous life; not Manon and certainly not Puccini. In the course of the opera, we get the impression that Des Grieux is in a constant ecstatic trance, as if he is unable to come around. His strange unconditional emotional dependence
on his beloved, his submissive sub jection to overwhelming emotions marks him as a self-destructive loser who despite the captivatingly lyric to dramatic music that Puccini wrote for him is consciously heading for a ca tastrophe which although fully aware of he cannot bring himself to stave off. In a passive, resigned manner he accepts the tragedy, his despair is rather more lassitude, evoked by the excessive demands on his emotionalpsychological capability. Due to the requirements of dra matic composition, Massenet raised Manon to the level of Des Grieux, who dominates in Prévost. In Pucci ni the protagonists cannot operate at the same level as each other because in his weak-willed bond to Manon the Chevalier receives his life impulse only from his lover. To find out more about Des Grieux, we have to refer to Prévost. He comes from a very good family, is a member of the Knights of Malta (hence the title “Chevalier”), is universally po pular, certainly ambitious and com plied above all with the moral de mands of his environment. Love for this unknown woman caught him unaware as he travelled to the uni versity city. Given this social structure and with his moralizing father, who exa cerbates much of his life (and whom Massenet, unlike Puccini, includes in his opera) the Des Grieux of Prévost has completely different characteris tics: unbridled passion, depression, all kinds of conflicts achieve diffe rent effects from Puccini. While some things may have a moralizing effect, in general things are not as inescapa bly desolate and final as in Puccini,
22
AN ITALIAN TRISTAN
due also to Des Grieux’ return to France from America. What fascinated Puccini so much about this story? Clearly not the love relationship between Manon and Des Grieux, but the predestined failure of the relationship. The tragedy is set in motion too early for a four-act opera (in the middle of Act 2). Right up until the predictable dire ending, everything that happens is nothing more than delaying the inevitable. Lescaut and Geronte de Ravoir can not be considered lead roles. Puccini’s Lescaut astonishes us because – contra ry to his own interests – he enables the reunion of the two lovers. The nume rous inconsistencies in the character of Lescaut, some of which were later corrected, make it clear how complete ly fixated Puccini was on the two pro tagonists. In Massenet, Lescaut is portrayed far more consistently and more cohesi vely; in this case in deviation from Pré vost, he is Manon’s cousin who has not met his relative before the opera. Puc cini skilfully combines the two gentle men de B. and de G.M. of the novel –
in Massenet Guillot de Morfontaine and de Brétigny – into one character: Geronte de Ravoir, an “old rake” who might be called a supporting role. Who could contradict the brilliant Oskar Bie who in 1913 in his book Die Oper wrote: “Massenet’s text is more like a novel, Puccini’s more tableau, although on the other hand Puccini adheres more closely to the old novel than Massenet does”, and: “Massenet suffers constantly from the posture of the previously mentioned sensibility and practised affectation, Puccini is a conversationalist, an elegant story-teller and charming illustrator, and therefore as a individual much more agreeable.” On the other hand, we must admit that Fedele D’Amico was right when he wrote in 1959: “Manon Lescaut is our Tristan. An instinctive, unproblematic Tristan, without cosmic involvement, on a small scale; precisely the kind of Tristan that Italian opera was capable of producing.” And, we should add, a glimpse into Puccini’s soul, a self portrayal of the composer that could not have been clearer in words.
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ROTRAUD A. PERNER
THE WAY OF CALAMITOUS TALENTS “If it be true that the benign succour afforded by Heaven is at all times equal to the strongest of man’s passions, I shall be glad to learn the nature of the deplo rable ascendancy which causes us sud denly to swerve from the path of duty, without the power of offering the least resistance, and without even the sligh test visitation of remorse.” Abbé Prévost, Manon Lescaut
reality when perception becomes dis torted – and Manon is seen more as an angelic being than a high-class callgirl, when awareness of self-deception vanishes and Des Grieux does not ap preciate his own moral and social de cline. But do we not all more or less lose sight of reality when we are in love? And where do the boundaries to pathology lie?
It takes a certain degree of talent to call upon heavenly succour, to embrace it and transform it into actions – just as it takes talent to yield to a passion fear lessly but responsibly. The characters in the opera at hand do not have these talents, but they do have others: to surrender to emotions completely – beyond reason. In the novel on which the opera is based, by contrast, quite different ta lents come to the surface: like her bro ther, Manon Lescaut knows how to or ganize a good life at the expense of her admirers; but does that make her “cal culating”? Her admirer Des Grieux, who has wandered from the path of virtue, acquires more and more talents as a petty criminal survival artist as his dependency on this girl grows – at the beginning of the novel, Manon is not quite seventeen years old. However, one might also determine that there is a lack of talent for seeing
According to C. G. Jung there are four forms of perception and consci ousness: adopting the diagram of the four cardinal direc tions, cognitive thinking is at the top, as a socially lau ded central function; in comparison, feeling is at the very bottom as “infe rior”, framed on each side by physical feeling on the one hand and intuition on the other. Based on this, the physi cally healthy individual would be one who can balance these four functions. Those seeking help enter psychothera py when they either “can no longer see a way out” of their emotions or when they are abandoned and isolated due to their coldness. (Or they come because of psychosomatic afflictions or over wrought imagination.) Clearly it takes talent to condense a work as complex as the – supposed ly partially autobiographic – novel Histoire du chevalier Des Grieux et de
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T H E WAY OF C A L A M I T O U S TA L E N T S
Manon Lescaut by Abbé (Antoine François) Prévost (1697 – 1763) into an equally exciting work for the stage, just as it requires the talent of perspective and decryption to interpret the intri cacy of suffering and passion as more than a dramatic love story. And it takes talent to block out disruptive details... everything that would make the cha racters seem incomprehensible and confuse the action on the opera stage too much. The subtitle to the novel of Manon Lescaut that I have to hand reads: “Sto ry of a passionate love.” I would have given it the title: “Story of an innocent – guilty dependence.” Prévost’s novel, which was a best-seller for centuries, is not just about a sexual obsession, it is a genre painting of the 17th century in which social conditions allowed few alternatives for establishing a house hold without parental support – and as a result virtue, fidelity, friendship live side by side with criminality, betrayal, and vindictiveness. While the opera guest experiences a toned-down version in which the infatuated Des Grieux, dazzled by the sight of the captivating Manon, tries to remove his beloved from the wealthy suitor, but find they have no way of escaping the vengeance of the cheated man, those reading the novel find a sig nificantly more comprehensive image of the various characters. As is also the case with Verdi’s Tra viata – about those who have strayed from the path – the aspect of exploita tion of man is discretely overlooked. Verismo only became acceptable in opera in the 20th century – take Alban Berg’s Lulu for example. Until the col lapse of the Imperial and Royal mon archy and tsarist rule, gallant suffering
was in demand – primarily by men, mark you! Women were allowed to be flighty and unfaithful, possibly also demonic, and the fact that they live off the financial magnanimity of men was entirely in line with social reality: with the exception of tutors or lady compa nions, working outside the home was limited to subordinate services, and social security or even opportunities for advancement were only possible through marriage (and widowhood) or the skilful arrangement of being a kept woman. Who would then be surprised that Manon Lescaut is a loose woman only in the novel? On the opera stage it is left to the creativity of the respective produc tion to indicate the dark sides of the young lovers, or to reinforce the light sides. In the novel by contrast the life confession of Chevalier Des Grieux re lentlessly lays bare the disarray of his senses and the loss of any kind of view of reality. Des Grieux does not see his moral decline – he consistently finds that he is free of blame, complains about his unfortunate circumstances, and ascribes the responsibility for his actions to others: beautiful Manon, the lack of understanding of a rigid father figure, provocation by arrogant knowalls, who want to guide him back to the path of social good conduct. In clinical practise such behaviours are generally diagnosed as “immature personality”. Maturity involves “sha dow integration” – recognition and controlling acceptance of those parts of one’s own personality that (could) place one in conflict with the social environment and lead to labels such as “criminal” or “mentally disturbed”, but also awareness of what causes one to see one person as completely fascina
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ROTRAUD A. PERNER
ting emotionally and the next as repul sive, and why a third person induces protest or rage. We always react emo tionally when the “other” in us is not yet in balance: when it is something that was forbidden us (and is neverthe less enticing) or that runs counter to our ideal image of ourself. Des Grieux reminds us a little of Pa tricia Highsmith’s talented Mr Ripley: like Ripley, he becomes tangled in an ever tighter network of untruths and lies, deceits and serious offences; like Ripley, he is motivated by seeking and finding a certain luxurious lifestyle; and like Ripley behind all his positi ve emotions, hate keeps flaring up for those who have everything, who are apparently carefree, and for the need to come to terms with them – or with so ciety and its representatives in general.
framing reality based on his own reas surance is evident: when Manon un ceremoniously introduces him to her guardian as “cousin”, he merely admi res her quick-wittedness, but does not recognize her “talent” for quickly “fa bricating” alternative realities or – ex pressed in less generous terms – lying. And Des Grieux falls into line.
THE TALENTED CHEVALIER DES GRIEUX
A lively imagination is a talent – we need only think of Peer Gynt! – but it easily escalates into lies, to self-decep tion, and can if it lasts longer lead to losing touch completely with reality. In that case, all that you see in the ob ject of your affections is the positive, everything negative is projected onto others. Given sufficient intelligence, you dream up the necessary justifications for your own self-righteous ness and also for the contempt of the “others”. In realistic love relationships, these perspectives frequently shift; suddenly the rose-coloured glasses come off and you see the other person with all their faults and quirks. Then “true” love – that meets the test of reality – proves itself: namely, when you can accept the other person in their full reality and nevertheless leave them as they are without trying to improve them.
The Des Grieux in the novel is very young – seventeen years old – from a well-situated family of lower-ranking nobility and full of his own impor tance. And clearly inexperienced, as far as the world outside school walls is concerned. Not so the girl who awa kens the mischievous delight in him: “Although she was even younger than I,” Abbé Prévost writes, “she accepted my compliments without embarrass ment.” And: “From what I then said to her, she at once understood my feelings for her, for she had more experience than I. There was no doubt that it was against her wish that she was being sent to a convent to repress her inclination for pleasure, and which subsequently caused all her misfortunes and mine.” And already Des Grieux’ talent for re-
“The majority of the rich and the great are fools; those who know anything of the world know this. However, there is an admirable compensating justice... Look at it as you will, the foolishness of the rich and great is an excellent source of revenue for the lower classes.” Abbé Prévost, Manon Lescaut
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T H E WAY OF C A L A M I T O U S TA L E N T S
Des Grieux’ so-called love moves stea dily away from reality, growing to eu phoria and hubris. A late offshoot of pubertal infatuation? Or harbinger of emotional instability far exceeding the excitability of the experienced teen ager that causes him to turn his “first woman” into an idol? Idolization means emotional ex ploitation of compulsive elements and primitive psychological processes in a relationship with an external real ob ject, as psycho-analyst Masud Khan explains: for the most part, these are people who have not yet experienced many sexual fantasies tend to be isola ted, but the latent urge for life simmers in them, for other people and what they have not been able to realize in their own life. In contrast to idealiza tion, which is an intrapsychic process greatly influenced by the imagination, in the case of isolization there is a clear over-burdening of an outside real ob ject; it is sustained by a set attitude and mode of action. The basis for this can be sought in early separation trauma. Or is it merely thankfulness that the adored person frequently prefers older, richer gallants? Or at least gives him the feeling that he is superior to them as a lover? An Oedipus complex? Keep the mother for yourself, get rid of the troublesome father figure? Des Grieux was being educated at a boar ding school. From this we can conclude that the “father has not been registered as an important figure or individual in the experience of the children”, as Masud Khan writes when deciphering idolization. Idolization, as pleasant as it may be for the adored “object” is not a re
ciprocal relationship. It is a “perver sion” – the other person (or object or whatever the case may be) is always “used” for their own gloriole: in that case one is for example a “great lover” – who the object of the love is in fact as immaterial as what one may one self experience in the way of adversity. As Masud Khan put it, those involved “are so to speak in constant retreat from the requirements of normal reali ty and value systems”. In their illusory world, as supermen they can indulge their narcissism undisturbed and look down on the ordinary folk. There are few people who have experien ced the full force of these special wor kings of the mind. The majority of people are receptive only to five or six passions, in the limited round of which they pass their lives... Individuals of a finer cast can be affected in a thousand different ways... Conscious that they possess a capacity which raises them above the common herd, there is nothing of which they are more jealous, and hence it is that a sense of debasement is perhaps the most vio lent of all their emotions. Abbé Prévost, Manon Lescaut Desire can assume an independent existence. Demonstrated first in neuro scientific experiments in rats, more re cent brain research has shown that in people too the brain hormone dopami ne – “the molecule of desire”, as biophy sicist Stefan Klein called it – changes the willingness of the neurons to recei ve messages and therefore the way in which an organism reacts to the world. “We see a goal: a roasted chicken! The brain releases beta-endorphins. It gives
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T H E WAY OF C A L A M I T O U S TA L E N T S
us a foretaste of the hoped-for enjoy ment and signals that what we have before us should be good for the orga nism. At the same time, it causes the brain to release dopamine at lightning speed”, Stefan Klein explains. And so, the wiring for liking and wanting are closely connected. “Under the influen ce of dopamine, we become more opti mistic, more alert and make an effort to get what we are in the mood for.” However, if a stimulus triggers de sire repeatedly, as Stefan Klein shows, the way large parts of the brain func tion change. “When it gains the upper hand, desire transforms people into driven creatures who no longer recog nize limitations and so lose sight of reality.” And experience withdrawal symptoms when the source of their de pendency is no longer available. How often do people talk about love in order not to have to admit to themselves that they are addicted... This is how American psychothera pist Anne Wilson Schaef differentiates based on the way that people organize the high, or “kick”, they get from rela tionship addiction, romance addiction and sex addition. Stefan Klein writes: “Not every man is a Don Juan. On the other hand, such thoughts of love as conquest, of sex as triumph are foreign to almost no man.” I would like to cla rify by way of explanation: this also applies to women – and in particular to Manon Lescaut!
AND THE TALENTS OF THE EPONYMOUS HEROINE?
is nevertheless about the decline of a hopeful young student and cleric to a nervous wreck and plaything of the Lescaut siblings; she a professional mistress, he despite his military career a professional gambler, both of them frauds. Whether this is due to upbrin ging, social necessity or delight in ad venture is an open question. From the viewpoint of the time, the eponymous heroine contradicts the official expectations of demure and therefore serving femininity. The fact that she is deported to America as a prostitute and quasi thief (of her own wages of sin) only conforms with the double standards of the day: anyone who is kept as mistress by a “gentle man” is graciously “overlooked” – until he wants to get rid of her, as far away as possible. From the current day perspective, her financially motivated promiscuity could be defined as a profession – “per formance of sexual services” – as posttraumatic stress disorder pursuant to sexual violence suffered in childhood (which based on social circumstances at that time can certainly be assumed) or as an unusually early form of stri ving for autonomy and libertinage. And it is precisely this that makes the plot fascinating: lulled by Puccini’s melodious music, women can iden tify with Manon and so with neverending sexual attractiveness, regard less of what she does... Men on the other hand find an identification figure in Des Grieux for mindless or irrespon sible behaviour, “because the woman is to blame”.
Even though Abbé Prévost wrote the name of the “fateful” woman at the beginning of his “episode”, his book
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BRIAN JADGE as DES GRIEUX
ANDREAS LÁNG
KORNGOLD’S MISJUDGEMENT …OR HOW PUCCINI’S MANON LESCAUT ALSO SURVIVED IN VIENNA When it comes to Puccini world pre mières, the Wiener Staatsoper seems to have been asleep at the wheel more than once. La bohème was first per formed at the Theater an der Wien in 1897, years before the opera house on the Ring opened its doors to the stage works of the “successor to Giusep pe Verdi”. Viennese audiences could “only” hear Le villi, his first opera, at the Akademietheater (the Staatsoper première did not take place until 2005), and Manon Lescaut too, the opera that established Puccini’s world fame was performed first at the Volksoper. And so it was Rainer Simons, direc tor of the Kaiserjubiläums-Stadtthea ter, as the opera house on the Gürtel was called at the time, who brought Manon Lescaut to the Danube Metro polis fifteen years later in 1908 and also procured the production. At that time, Puccini was already considered one of the top sellers in the repertoire, a si tuation that Julius Korngold stressed at the beginning of his discussion of premières in the Neue Freie Presse newspaper: “Lucky Puccini! The char mer has conquered Vienna. He is in the saddle at the Court Opera and is triumphant on the Währinger Gürtel. Two operas there, and now two operas here.” The attention that this new produc tion drew can perhaps be seen from
the fact that Korngold devoted his own long article to the work on the front page of his newspaper on 25 January 1908. In it, he did not address the per formance at all, but talked about the piece in general. Korngold had already written an actual “review” praising the performing artists on 23 January, i.e., the day after the first performance. He lavished praise on Helene Oberländer, who sang the title role, and Lutzmann (Des Grieux) and also expressed his ap proval of the direction and orchestra. The positive response of the audi ence also did not go unmentioned; they hailed the intermezzo before the third act so enthusiastically that it had to be repeated. However, Korngold himself apparently did not particularly care for the opera. He mentioned se veral pleasing passages, but criticized weaknesses in the libretto and asserted that the piece would not survive very long. He made positive mention pri marily of the influence of verismo and of Wagner’s Tristan: “We experienced the surprise of seeing Puccini betray a young love – for Wagner’s Tristan. As the pain of the lovers intensifies, Tristan idioms permeate the cantilena, into the harmony of the composition.” But Manon Lescaut was determined to survive and made its way to the ope ra house on the Ring under the baton of Franz Schalk. However, Korngold was
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KORNGOLD’S MISJUDGEMENT
not to be stirred from his original opi nion. So much so that at the première at the Wiener Staatsoper in 1923(!), in other words a decade and half later, he came up with an unparalleled journa listic oddity: with the justification that he could not repeat what he had alrea dy said but using different words, he had his critical review of 1908 reprin ted word for word. The only difference was his detai led assessment of the performers. Ne vertheless, he could not refrain from taking a side-swipe at the work. Korn gold combined his hymn of praise to Alfred Piccaver, the performer of the male lead role, with his opinion that the character of Des Grieux was fea tured more than the title heroine and so the opera should be named after the tenor role. Lotte Lehmann’s interpreta tion of the role of Manon Lescaut was accordingly dignified with correspon dingly few lines. In the following years it seemed as if Korngold’s prophesy would be fulfil led, at least in Vienna. The work had been seen at the opera house on the Ring only twelve times by 1945, and after the Second World War it was ele ven years before Manon Lescaut was back in the repertoire. But in February 1956 the time had come. The first pre mière after the Wiener Staatsoper’s re opening festival was that of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut. And the triumph could not have been bigger. Audiences proved to be just as enthusiastic as most cultural correspondents. The composition was praised, and the production became a touchstone by which the rest of the season could be judged. Accordingly, the Neuer Kurier wrote: “Manon Lescaut is the work of a master who paints
moods without wasting resources, knows how to depict situations, and who can transform emotions, both cheerful and painful, into blossoming sound.” Günther Rennert’s production and Rudolf Schock’s Des Grieux met with approval, albeit with a few re servations – some audience members considered Rudolf Schock to be too un-Italian to be truly credible. But Ru dolf Moralt’s conducting, Karla Marti nis’ Manon and Walter Berry’s Lescaut won countless laurels. It was also this production in which the awaited language change took pla ce. Until 1964 the performances had all been sung in various German translati ons. The new production (29 October 1964) given “as part of Italian Culture Weeks” was used to finally establish performance of this opera too in the ori ginal language. This time the lead roles were sung by Antonietta Stella (Manon Lescaut), Gastone Limarilli (Des Grieux) and Kostas Paskalis (Lescaut). The 1986 production prompted even greater acclamation than the 1956 production; over the next ten years it was on the schedule nearly 50 times, thereby proving the viability of the work. Under the baton of Giuseppe Si nopoli, the cast at the première at the opera house on the Ring included Mi rella Freni, Peter Dvorský and Bernd Weikl, who elicited applause lasting more than 30 minutes. Around a month later this Otto Schenk production went on tour of Japan with some of the same cast. It was performed in Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya and Osaka to great acclaim. As if that were not enough, the fifth performance in Vienna was given in support of the probation service. In an introductory talk, psychologist Erwin
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ANDREAS LÁNG
Ringel emphasized the connection bet ween the opera Manon Lescaut and the probation service, giving the piece an unexpected additional dimension. The 89th performance (4 June 2005) of the opera at the Wiener Staatsoper was also the première of the current production by Robert Carsen.
Even though performance statistics for the opera in which according to Korn gold Puccini wrote his “most sincere music” are overshadowed by those of its sisters La bohème, Tosca, and Mad ama Butterfly, Manon Lescaut is still very much alive.
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BORIS PINKHASOVICH as LESCAUT
IMPRINT GIACOMO PUCCINI
MANON LESCAUT SEASON 2023/24 Publisher WIENER STAATSOPER GMBH, Opernring 2, 1010 Wien Director DR. BOGDAN ROŠČIĆ Music Director PHILIPPE JORDAN Administrative Director DR. PETRA BOHUSLAV General Editors SERGIO MORABITO, ANDREAS LÁNG, OLIVER LÁNG Design & concept EXEX Layout & typesetting MIWA MEUSBURGER Cover picture SYLVIE FLEURY SERIE ELA 75/K (PLUMPITY...PLUMP) Cover concept MARTIN CONRADS, BERLIN All performance photos by MICHAEL PÖHN Printed by PRINT ALLIANCE HAV PRODUKTIONS GMBH, BAD VÖSLAU TEXT REFERENCES Ian Burton: THE MYTH OF MANON, from: programme of Vlaamse Opera Antwerpen, 1991 – Robert Carsen: THE MANON SYNDROME, from: Manon Lescaut première programme, Wiener Staatsoper, 2005 - Nobert Abels THE METAMORPHOSIS OF MANON, from: Ohrentheater, Axel Dielmann-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main – Christian Springer: AN ITALIAN TRISTAN, from: Manon Lescaut-programme Wiener Staatsoper, 1986 – Rotraud A. Perner: THE WAY OF CALAMITOUS TALENTS, from: Manon Lescaut-programme Wiener Staatsoper, 2005 – Andreas Láng: KORNGOLD’S MISJUDGEMENT, from: Manon Lescaut-programme Wiener Staatsoper, 2005. English translations Andrew Smith. Reproduc tion only with approval of Wiener Staatsoper GmbH / Dramaturgy. Abbreviations are not marked. Holders of rights who were unavailable regarding retrospect compensation are requested to make contact. This production is sponsored by
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