Manon Lescaut review – Puccini up close and personal

To watch opera in Monte Carlo is to enter a different world. Two nights before Puccini’s Manon Lescaut by the Med, Paris’ Opéra Bastille had hosted an audience of 2,700 for Massenet’s Cendrillon. One week later, New York’s Met was to pack in 3,700 for a stunning Turandot. Opera on a scale we have grown to expect.

Now, I was in Prince Albert’s Salle Garnier, seating 524. This would be an opera close-up and personal. Back to Baroque court theatre intimacy. A totally different experience. 

It was certainly different getting there. Monaco has capitalised on the humungous investment needed each year to transform its twisty streets into the world’s most famous safety barrier defended F1 Grand Prix circuit, so now hosts two get-the-max-out-of-the-Armco-barriers preliminary weekends of racing. It used to be only one, for historic cars. 

I found myself jumping safety barriers from the Café de Paris, scraping shins on the pointy carbon fibre bits of carelessly parked Lamborghinis, Ferraris and McLarens, during the weekend of the E-Prix. Saving the planet by racing whirring electric cars around the town. Scalextric gone big boy. 

And this, two weeks before helping to fossilise us all by unleashing the pack of 4 miles per gallon, ear-shattering 840 brake horsepower F1 behemoths on long-suffering Monegasque residents. No opera can be scheduled for Grand Prix weekend.

And no accessing the Salle Garnier by the glam west door. Closed for renovation. The entrance is currently via the famous glass frontage on Casino Square. Sharply dressed opera-goers mixed with jeans-sneakered punters en route to the rather downmarket casino complex. Slot machines. Ugh! No wonder James Bond hoofed it to Montenegro. 

The opera house is part of the Casino complex and was bolted on in an only eight-month impulse in 1875. Its Garnier doppelganger in Paris took six years. Step inside, and it’s easy to see why the quick build. 

In Monaco, they seem to have used all the bits leftover from the Paris job: “Look, guv, I’ve got a few baroque boxes left over. Doin’ nuffin rotting away on the Seine. Special deal for your Royal Highness. Tell you what, give you the lot for a knock down price. Have them on the back of that Blue Train before you can say, ‘Sarah Bernhardt’. She’s thrown in for opening night, by the way. Does a cracking nymph.”

The cake-icing decor is not to scale. Two massive, gilded boxes flank the stage. Empty and useless. Occupants — if there ever are any — could view only the audience. I liked the floor to ceiling windows overlooking the Med. Slightly disappointed when at curtain up, electric velvet drapes obscured the glowing dusk. 

The overall impression is of being in a poky dower house into which a widowed Countess of Grantham has stuffed the Downton main house oversized furniture. 

The setting was ideal for Manon Lescaut, the tragic Abbé Prévost tale of the flawed heroine torn between idealistic love and the magnetic attraction of riches. The audience was completely immersed in the harrowing action. And when soprano, Anna Netrebko, Manon, is confronting you, full-voiced, across that narrow space, you will be lucky at the end to find your ears still attached to your head. 

My neighbour, sitting on my right, a season ticket holder, complained at the interval the whole thing was too loud, then undermined her argument by confessing her new hearing aid was rubbish. It turned out, she had a daughter, Toni Bentley, a dancer with New York City Ballet in the George Balanchine era, who had just published Serenade, telling the story of that iconic ballet that premiered in 1934. 

No, Toni is not 100. She was a 17-year-old student when she encountered Balanchine towards the end of his career in 1975. Bentley has written a shelf-load of interesting books on ballet. I shall review Serenade later. It’s nearly always worthwhile striking up a conversation with fellow opera-goers. This time, it paid off in spades.

A tale of ill-fated romance, Manon Lescaut has been a favourite of opera-goers since it premiered in Turin in 1893. It is the story of a lovely young woman, Manon, who is being taken by her brother to live in a convent. 

Des Grieux, a poor, local student, is overwhelmed by Manon’s beauty and falls madly in love with her at first sight. Learning that Manon is headed to the convent, he convinces her to run away with him. 

Puccini’s genius in presenting what are “tableaux” operas is to miss out on the dull bits of the original plot. So, unlike in Massenet’s Manon, which focuses on the “domestics” that erode the Manon/Des Grieux relationship and which goes on a bit, we jump-cut a few months. 

In Act II, we encounter a Manon who has become bored with poverty and gone to live with Geronte, sung by Italian bass, Alessandro Spina, a wealthy tax collector whom her brother had chosen as her protector and hopeful suitor. Geronte had tried to whip her off at the start but had his coach — in this version, a car — stolen by Des Grieux. 

In other productions I’ve seen, the elderly Geronte dotes on Manon and is usually portrayed as a simpleton cuckold. In this Guy Montavon version, he is cast as a cynical manipulator, prepared to bring all the power of his position to bear to destroy Manon and, eventually, Des Grieux. This is a much more electrifying approach. 

Manon now has everything she could ever want – chests of jewels, objects d’art, but grows bored of having “things” and longs for the passion she felt with Des Grieux. Soon reunited with Des Grieux, Geronte catches the couple together in the throes of passion in his tastefully decorated pad — and has Manon arrested. 

Des Grieux and Manon’s brother, Lescaut, unsuccessfully attempt to help her escape from jail. As she is about to be deported to Louisiana, Des Grieux manages to secure Geronte’s agreement to board the ship to the United States as a member of the crew. 

On arrival in New Orleans, Manon and Des Grieux realise they must escape, but Manon collapses as they seek refuge. As she is dying, Manon declares her love for Des Grieux one final time. The ill-fated love of Manon and Des Grieux is hauntingly beautiful and enthralling.

The final scene is a desert — the libretto makes it quite clear — parched and hostile — and Des Grieux hopelessly seeks help on a trip to the horizon, coming back to tend to the dying Manon. He found…nothing.

Montavon manages to screw up Act III big time, which ruins what is otherwise an extremely successful effort to translate Manon Lescaut to the present day. Manon is confined in a dungeon. Separated by a glass wall and occupying what looks like an untidy bedsit, Des Grieux is reduced to beating frustratedly on the glass.

When I first read Prévost, moonlighting in Higher French at Glasgow University, trying to hang on to student life by taking an MA after my stultifying Llb, what seared my mind was Manon and Des Grieux’s hopelessness in their battle with the cruel world, even when together. 

Introducing that glass wall at the conclusion destroyed the very point Prévost was making. Even selfless reconciliation can’t beat the damned system. When they reach America, the glass wall that had separated them from each other — Geronte’s wealth — has dissolved. Don’t bring it back.

The full orchestra sounded luscious in the confined space. Monaco has deep pockets. It needs them. A sold-out house will bring in revenue of only £125,000, less than half its Paris counterpart, La Bastille can expect — £300,000. This is a Grimaldi self-indulgence. The immediate hire of Anna Netrebko, driven from New York’s Met for her pro-Putin sympathies, is evidence of that. 

As are the high quality of the orchestra, securing the services of veteran conductor, Pinchas Steinberg — currently with Budapest Philharmonic Opera — and other principals tenor Yusif Eyvazov (Des Grieux), baritone Claudio Sgura (Lescaut, Manon’s on-the-make brother) and tenor Luis Gomes (Edmondo).

It’s a whopping shopping list for a small house. I’m fingering next year’s calendar. Opéra de Monte-Carlo, is worth a long detour!

And another thing!

On Wednesday in Manhattan, Italian bass Ferruccio Furlanetto sang the role of King Timur, father of Prince Calaf, at the closing night of this Met run of Puccini’s Turandot. Furlanetto is a spry 72, and his first professional gig was in Lonigo, in 1974.

I couldn’t get the idea out of my head that this might be the last time I would see him on the Met stage, and reflected on what a stunning career he is having. He popped up in Washington in Mozart’s Cosi Fan tutte only a few weeks ago. Still tireless.

And charming. And unassuming. I was even prepared to appear on the crazy, amateurish Zoom-delivered Cadenza series I presented for the Metropolitan Opera Club during lockdown. Do join! We’re recruiting additional international members. So far, I’m the only one.

Trouper best describes Furlanetto. He mops up heavyweight roles – Boris Godunov, Philip II in Don Carlos, Don Quichotte, Banquo in Macbeth…His role of honour has unfurled for 50 years.

One reason he has endured — apart from pacing himself and not taking on roles that would ruin his voice — is his ability to assume character. It is always Boris sung by Ferruccio, not Ferruccio singing Boris.

Last night’s role as the blind, deposed King Timur was beautifully constructed. His gentleness with his loyal servant girl Liu, who commits suicide to conceal the identity of his son, Calaf, to Turandot, a masterclass in pathos.

I’ve been lucky enough to encounter him over the lunch or dinner table from time to time — as well as a dodgy Zoom link — and he is a cornucopia of international operatic experience. I shall be watching closely, to see where he pops up next. I advise you to do the same. 

I bet he won’t be spending all his time with his classic car collection in Vienna.