LOVE and protests: ‘Manon Lescaut’ returns to the Liceu between euphoria and discord | Culture | EUROtoday

When in 1889 the editor Giulio Ricordi tried to dissuade the younger man Puccini to set to music the identical argument that had simply elevated Massenetthe composer responded with well-known impudence: “A woman like Manon can have more than one lover.” And he was proper. Manon Lescaut (1893), his first nice operatic equipment, can also be probably the most daringly Wagnerian: the place Massenet had stored the story of the Abbé Prévost inside the limits of the lyric operaPuccini pushes it in direction of an absolute drama, of Tristanesque descent, which ends up in the unusual nudity of the ultimate act. There, by out of the blue stripping the spectator of the theatrical units that protected him within the previous acts, turns it into voyeur of a devastated intimacy.

That final act—a static duet of affection and dying unprecedented in Italian opera—locations the viewers as a direct witness of an agony suspended within the nothingness of an American desert. The impression it made might be traced within the opinions revealed after the Turin premiere on February 1, 1893. “It left the public stunned and overwhelmed by emotion,” he wrote. The Gazzetta del Popoloas if the spectators “needed to convince themselves that what they had witnessed was not reality, but a staged fiction.”

The twenty minutes of that last act as soon as once more grew to become a excessive depth expertise on March 17 on the Liceu in Barcelona. The courageous and controversial manufacturing of Alex Ollépremiered on the Frankfurt Opera in 2019, which transfers the motion to the up to date drama of irregular immigration in an summary house dominated by the large letters of the English phrase LOVE. But it was, above all, the memorable incarnation of the protagonist by the Lithuanian soprano Asmik Grigorian which unleashed the ultimate euphoria, punctuated by some protests directed on the stage administration.

Manon’s lament, Alone, misplaced, deserted —which gave Puccini so many issues till its last reinstatement in 1923—was the true climax of the night. In the midst of the tense opening ostinato, Grigorian discovered the precise dose of energy, seduction and charisma to convey the desperation of a younger lady who dies clinging to like and life. It was the fruits of an exemplary evolution of the character by the versatile soprano from Vilnius, who transitioned naturally from the melancholic and capricious teenager to the heroine tragically conscious of her future, passing via the sensual courtesan of the second act.

They are associate It was the tenor Ivan Gyngazov, substitute in Joshua Guerrero’s first performances. He pushed Russian exhibited steel and dramatic energy as Des Grieux, one among Puccini’s most in depth and demanding roles. He particularly stood out within the final two acts—specifically, in his heartbreaking Look, I’m loopy, look of the third—though his singing was extra monotonous within the first two, the place he didn’t discover the sweetness, morbidity and elasticity that his well-known aria requires. I by no means noticed a lady.

The Ukrainian baritone Iurii Samoilov He shone extra on the performing stage than on the vocal stage as Lescaut, Manon’s wayward brother, in an identical vein to that of his latest Onegin on the Teatro Real. Something comparable occurred with the Italian bass Donato Di Stefano, an skilled humorous bel canto participant who supplied a radical incarnation of a Geronte turned gangster, repulsive, bald and sporting sun shades. Among the supporting roles, the younger Croatian tenor Filip Filipović offered freshness as Edmondo, together with the Italian Andrea Antognetti within the quick lamplighter’s tune within the third act. The Cor del Gran Teatre del Liceu additionally stood out, particularly as the group gathered within the port throughout the third act.

The musical course of Joseph Pons She as soon as once more appeared competent, however not very idiomatic in Puccini. The nonetheless proprietor of the Liceu started the opera with vivacity, though with out the required effusion, theatrical pulse or lyrical abandon. The quantity additionally posed particular steadiness issues with the singers within the densest passages with a Wagnerian imprint. After the break, nonetheless, he extracted larger dramatic depth within the final two acts, particularly within the fourth, the very best of the night time. The well-known Interludeone of the vital impressed moments of the Gran Teatre del Liceu Symphony Orchestra.

In the scenic part, Alex Ollé takes on the thorny process of updating Puccini. The thought of ​​turning the protagonist into an immigrant who enters Europe irregularly works in dramatic phrases, but it surely lacks true theatrical brilliance and is weighed down by an overload of pointless parts. This is the case of the black and white movie of Emmanuel Carlier previous to the musical begin, which recounts Manon’s adventures till her arrival at that type of station with a quick meals institution the place the opera begins.

The surroundings of Alfons Flores units the second act in a membership stripteasean possibility that clashes with the neo-rococo refinement of the music. The detention cages within the third act add stress, however make the motion tough to see. The best success of the manufacturing are the monumental letters LOVE that run via the surroundings and preside over the fourth act, the place that concept of ​​love is transfigured into tragedy. The exact and poetic lighting by Joachim Klein and Jann Hartmann contributes to this, together with a synthetic and banal costume by Lluc Castells that includes eccentricities, such because the conversion of the lamplighter right into a transvestite.