"Manon Lescaut" in Theaters this Weekend

[+ WilliamM]

Just a reminder. Puccini's "Manon Lescaut" from Covent Garden will be in theaters starting July 24.

 

Antonio Pappano, conducting. With Kristine Opolais, Jonas Kaufmann

 

I was not planning to be in the city this weekend, glad my plans changed at the last minute.

 

http://www.screenvision.com/cinema-events/manon-lescaut/

[TruHart1]

Just a reminder. Puccini's "Manon Lescaut" from Covent Garden will be in theaters starting July 24.

 

Antonio Pappano, conducting. With Kristine Opolais, Jonas Kaufmann

 

I was not planning to be in the city this weekend, glad my plans changed at the last minute.

 

http://www.screenvision.com/cinema-events/manon-lescaut/

 

 

I saw this today. Quite a different production, updated to present day, mostly true to the libretto although I was a bit mystified by the “boarding of the ship” going to America in the 3rd act. The singing was wonderful all around as was the excellent conducting of this almost Wagner-like score by Sir Antonio Pappano. This was the role debuts for both Kristine Opalais and Jonas Kaufmann, the Manon and de Grieux respectively. These are the sort of full-voiced singers this lush early Puccini piece requires. Although one may quibble with some of the director’s staging ideas, all of the principals, the student Edmondo (in act 1) and the madrigal singer (in act 2) were totally committed to creating their characters on stage! Well worth a viewing if you have a chance.

 

TruHart1

[+ Italiano]

I have to say that apart from just a few interesting elements, I found that the direction and concept really sucked. So much contrast between text and what you see makes it absurd. Manon forced to enter a convent because his father wants that in present time?...Manon forced to deportation in 2014?....de Grieux using that kind of verbal romantic approach with Manon in 2014?...Changing the translation of the subtitles in English so that people don't get what they are really saying in Italian doesn't make it credible, it actually makes it mystified and annoying.

Opolais and Kaufmann were superb, so were Pappano and the CG orchestra.

[TruHart1]

I have to say that apart from just a few interesting elements, I found that the direction and concept really sucked. So much contrast between text and what you see makes it absurd. Manon forced to enter a convent because his father wants that in present time?...Manon forced to deportation in 2014?....de Grieux using that kind of verbal romantic approach with Manon in 2014?...Changing the translation of the subtitles in English so that people don't get what they are really saying in Italian doesn't make it credible, it actually makes it mystified and annoying.

Opolais and Kaufmann were superb, so were Pappano and the CG orchestra.

 

All valid points technically but...

 

I did tend to go with the concept because of the singers' ability to take me out of any time/place/setting. If it had been a mediocre cast, I'd probably consider it a complete failure as a production but because of Pappano, Kaufmann and Opolais it did rise above any "concept!" I was brought back to the days of Tebaldi and Scotto as far as Opolais acting and intensity with, of course, her less flawed (than the 2 ladies I referred to) instrument. As for Kaufmann, could there be a better de Grieux available today? I doubt it. The dichotomy between the English subtitles and the Italian libretto are a bit glaring if you understand the words sung but to me the glorious singing was certainly enough to carry the performance. Would I rather see a production set in the 17th century? Of course, but I am just thrilled enough with the cast and conductor to enjoy the piece musically! I know I will end up buying the Blu-Ray of this performance when it is released next year just for the reasons I've mentioned!

 

TruHart1

[+ WilliamM]

valid points technically but...

 

I did tend to go with the concept because of the singers' ability to take me out of any time/place/setting. If it had been a mediocre cast, I'd probably consider it a complete failure as a production but because of Pappano, Kaufmann and Opolais it did rise above any "concept!" I was brought back to the days of Tebaldi and Scotto as far as Opolais acting and intensity with, of course, her less flawed (than the 2 ladies I referred to) instrument. As for Kaufmann, could there be a better de Grieux available today? I doubt it. The dichotomy between the English subtitles and the Italian libretto are a bit glaring if you understand the words sung but to me the glorious singing was certainly enough to carry the performance. Would I rather see a production set in the 17th century? Of course, but I am just thrilled enough with the cast and conductor to enjoy the piece musically! I know I will end up buying the Blu-Ray of this performance when it is released next year just for the reasons I've mentioned!

 

I agree. Opolais and Kaufmann were so good, singing and acting, that I accepted the modern setting without much question.

But, xafnndaff is right. With other singers in the lead roles, it would have been a very different experience.

 

I saw "Manon Lescaut" at 11 AM on Sunday, July 27; it's only showing in Philadelphia. That was just too early, especially on a Sunday morning. Since most of Kaufmann's performances are eventually available on DVD, I look forward to watching the first hour again.

[whipped guy]

Sounds like another instance where an operatic stage director has a "concept" and then by hook or by crook must prove that his idea is more stage-worthy than that of the composer and librettist. In the process they often use every trick in the book and that includes altering the translations of the subtitles to reflect the concept. Of course there usually are incidents where they fail to amend the titles and the results can be quite disconcerting if not downright laughable.

 

Either way, as xafnndap mentions, it results in a disconnect between what is being sung and what is being read... being sung and what is being seen... or very often a combination of the two!

 

At any rate, my usual modus operandi in such situations where an outstanding performance is saddled with a hideous production is to convert the soundtrack of such DVDs to an audio WAVE file for listening in my iPod or for burning to conventional CDs. I did not see this, but for some I would guess that might be a viable alternative for maximum enjoyment when the performance is commercially released.

 

I have not checked to see if this is available on YouTube, but that is the perfect place to try before you buy... Of late I have elected to pass on much of what I have seen.

[TruHart1]

Sounds like another instance where an operatic stage director has a "concept" and then by hook or by crook must prove that his idea is more stage-worthy than that of the composer and librettist. In the process they often use every trick in the book and that includes altering the translations of the subtitles to reflect the concept. Of course there usually are incidents where they fail to amend the titles and the results can be quite disconcerting if not downright laughable.

 

Either way, as xafnndap mentions, it results in a disconnect between what is being sung and what is being read... being sung and what is being seen... or very often a combination of the two!

 

At any rate, my usual modus operandi in such situations where an outstanding performance is saddled with a hideous production is to convert the soundtrack of such DVDs to an audio WAVE file for listening in my iPod or for burning to conventional CDs. I did not see this, but for some I would guess that might be a viable alternative for maximum enjoyment when the performance is commercially released.

 

I have not checked to see if this is available on YouTube, but that is the perfect place to try before you buy... Of late I have elected to pass on much of what I have seen.

 

WG, I can agree with your analysis but if one loves this most youthful and romantic of Puccini’s scores as I do, you are depriving yourself if you miss at least the audio since the conductor and the two leads are not only the best that could come together in this place and time but comparable, if not better, than some of the great historic casts I’ve heard, i.e. Tebaldi & John Alexander in a 1968 MET broadcast and Scotto & Domingo in a 1980 MET broadcast! Both of those productions were set in the 17th century as put forth in the libretto, BTW.

 

TruHart1

[whipped guy]

WG, I can agree with your analysis but if one loves this most youthful and romantic of Puccini’s scores as I do, you are depriving yourself if you miss at least the audio since the conductor and the two leads are not only the best that could come together in this place and time but comparable, if not better, than some of the great historic casts I’ve heard, i.e. Tebaldi & John Alexander in a 1968 MET broadcast and Scotto & Domingo in a 1980 MET broadcast! Both of those productions were set in the 17th century as put forth in the libretto, BTW.

 

TruHart1

 

I have not had the chance to check it out... accordingly my "analysis" was based on previous experiences with other productions as well as the comments already posted. At any rate, on one recent release set in the twentieth century the director had soldiers off to fight in the Crusades... Kind of a disconnect. At any rate, I recall seeing Manon Lescaut at the MET in the 1980's but for the life of me can't recall the cast...

[TruHart1]

I have not had the chance to check it out... accordingly my "analysis" was based on previous experiences with other productions as well as the comments already posted. At any rate, on one recent release set in the twentieth century the director had soldiers off to fight in the Crusades... Kind of a disconnect. At any rate, I recall seeing Manon Lescaut at the MET in the 1980's but for the life of me can't recall the cast...

 

I do have a problem with the conceptual updating of traditional pieces. If a director takes a piece out of the place and time it was originally set, it invariably will have a problem or 14 in matching the libretto with the new setting. I saw a Trovatore not too long ago which was set up like a murder mystery. It all took place in modern times in the relatively nice home of Azucena. No gypsy here! Explanation title cards between scenes would try to set up the next scene in context. A lot of the staging just seemed a major fail! Back to this particular Manon Lescaut, hearing audio of the performance may indeed preferable for those who understand the Italian and would find the changes in the English subtitles jarring. Certain things, like going through a billboard rather than boarding a ship for America and having the lamplighter in the 3rd act lowered down on a bank of theater lights (as a lighting technician?) just made no sense to me.

 

Truhart1

[whipped guy]

One last thing that always bothered me about Manon Lescaut is that the last act is at times (or at least used to be ) referenced as taking place in the desert outside New Orleans. In reality the Italian references the following:

 

"Una landa sterminata sui confini del territorio del Nuova Orleans... terreno brullo ed ondulato... "

 

 

"A vast plain on the borders of the territory of New Orleans... barren undulating terrain..."

 

I'm not sure if this "desert disconnect" is based on the original source by Provost... where the lovers last a bit longer together and have further adventures before Manon's ultimate demise.

 

In any event, I'm curious to know what the scenery for that last act consisted of... Did it take place in front of a Popeye's... as in Lousiana fine?!?!

[bostonman]

Well, of course, updating the time of a story - or for that matter pushing a story back in time - is pretty common nowadays, and it doesn't happen just in opera (Shakespeare productions do this a lot too, etc). And sometimes it works, sometimes it sorta works, and sometimes it really doesn't make any sense at all. What I find most ridiculous about it at times is that seeming need for a director to make things "relevant" for the audience by showing obvious parallels to modern society or situations, etc - as if audiences would be too stupid to pick up such parallels on their own. And also when there doesn't seem to be any real need to re-set the story other than that other directorial trap of "I just have to do something new to this tired old warhorse."

 

A few examples of things that stick out in my head - the Met did what I thought was a very good new production of Puccini's Il Trittico not long ago - with Gianni Schicchi updated to the 1950's. It looked just fine - but when Rinuccio starts to sing about "the new generation" of artists, etc, in his aria, such as Giotto, or when Schicchi describes the legal punishment for forging a will (having your hand cut off, and exile), you have to go "huh? I thought it was 1950..." - now, it's a farce, and by and large the production still worked, but it forces us to make allegorical hash out of the libretto, which does take one out of the story for those moments.

 

Similarly - the Met's recent new Rigoletto transported us to a vivid rendering of 1960's Vegas. Not everything translated well (the silliness with the elevators during the abduction scene, etc), but again, it looked wonderful and mostly worked for me. But there are some opera conventions that just don't die, unfortunately, like the stand-and-sing chorus (I know, the Met chorus does a lot of productions per year, and there simply isn't enough rehearsal time to do the intricate staging we might see in a Broadway show, etc). So here we have the men of the Met chorus just kinda standing around in a huge casino - a place where I imagine there would actually be non-stop activity. So my first thought on seeing the opening scene was, "well, if they can stand around in a Vegas casino, what was wrong with standing around in a 16th century Mantua court?" (In other words, if only the set and costumes are being updated, and the staging is basically the same-old same-old, and the characters - all of them, not just the leads - don't look as if they're honest to the new setting, why change the setting at all?)

 

Probably no one remembers a short-lived revival of Guys And Dolls on Broadway back a few seasons ago, the brainchild of Des McAnuff (who also tinkered way too overmuch with Loesser's How To Succeed in the Broderick revival), who decided to set the show a bit earlier than usual, in 1935 (the era the stories were written - the 1950 original played as if it were happening in 1950), and using a silent "shadow" character of Damon Runyon who weaved in and out of the action (another tired conceit that directors seem to fall prey to over and over). Ok, whatever. But Sky has this wonderful retort to Sarah Brown when she's surprised that he wants to take her out to dinner by way of Havana - "where do you want to eat? Howard Johnson's?" - in 1950, this was a fun joke - HoJo's was ubiquitous. In 1935, however, the restaurant was not yet a big chain, and hadn't come to NYC yet. So the line became an anomaly. (And yes, it stayed in the show. I hope to god the dramaturg checked their facts, though - I'm assuming McAnuff just figured no one in the audience would know or care. And maybe so - but still, I think little details like that are important.)

 

Also, of course - ANY piece updated to the present has to address the issue of technology. Most opera plots, for instance, would be over in 2 seconds if the characters could have called/texted each other on their cellphones to ward off a problem, yes? (Going back to Manon Lescaut, that whole wonderful Act II finale sequence makes little sense when Lescaut could have just texted the lovers to warn them Geronte and the police were on their way, etc.) But does so-called "suspension of disbelief" really also mean that we need to imagine such productions set in a modern time but without any of the changes in lifestyle? (Would even something as farcical as Menotti's The Telephone work even in a late-20th-century setting, where things like call waiting and answering machines would have made Lucy just look stupid instead of a chronic chatterer? An audience seeing that piece today would surely get the parallels to people who can't put their cellphones down, etc - but to try to literally update the piece would defeat the material.)

 

I tend to think the best kind of updates are writer-generated, rather than director-generated. A writer or composer using an older story as the basis for a new setting, with the ability to adapt characters and situations wholeheartedly, instead of that duality we often have to accept in updated productions. Everyone knows that Rent is based on La Boheme, for instance, but Jonathan Larson reinvented the whole world of the piece - characters, plotlines, specifics of the story - to make it truly work in his own 1990's setting. Whatever one may think of the show itself, I think it's a much more compelling, honest piece than would be the effect of seeing Puccini's opera done in a 1990's setting, where we'd be asked to "translate" the specifics of the libretto to another time. In Rent, Larson has already done all of that for us.

[TruHart1]

One last thing that always bothered me about Manon Lescaut is that the last act is at times (or at least used to be ) referenced as taking place in the desert outside New Orleans. In reality the Italian references the following:

 

"Una landa sterminata sui confini del territorio del Nuova Orleans... terreno brullo ed ondulato... "

 

 

"A vast plain on the borders of the territory of New Orleans... barren undulating terrain..."

 

...

 

In any event, I'm curious to know what the scenery for that last act consisted of... Did it take place in front of a Popeye's... as in Lousiana fine?!?!

 

Well. How shall I explain this? Manon and de Grieux “board the ship to America” at the end of the 3rd act by going through a hole in the right side of a large billboard with the word naiveté next to a woman’s face (like a make-up or glamour billboard.) Act 4 opens and we see what looks like a billboard (with the other side of the hole they came through) showing a Southwest desert picture with red rock formations, cacti and blue sky. We find them on a cement bridge up in the air that is either unfinished or collapsed. It is the literal end of the road for Manon. When de Grieux goes to search for water he climbs down to an underpass (on stage floor level) and Manon is left to sing her big aria, Sola, perduta, abbandonata! De Grieux climbs back up and Manon dies in his arms. From the camera angle it looks like very limited space for the singers and I kept thinking someone could lose their footing and slip. So there was no “barren undulating terrain” unless you count the Southwest billboard painting.

 

TruHart1

[whipped guy]

Well. How shall I explain this? Manon and de Grieux “board the ship to America” at the end of the 3rd act by going through a hole in the right side of a large billboard with the word naiveté next to a woman’s face (like a make-up or glamour billboard.) Act 4 opens and we see what looks like a billboard (with the other side of the hole they came through) showing a Southwest desert picture with red rock formations, cacti and blue sky. We find them on a cement bridge up in the air that is either unfinished or collapsed. It is the literal end of the road for Manon. When de Grieux goes to search for water he climbs down to an underpass (on stage floor level) and Manon is left to sing her big aria, Sola, perduta, abbandonata! De Grieux climbs back up and Manon dies in his arms. From the camera angle it looks like very limited space for the singers and I kept thinking someone could lose their footing and slip. So there was no “barren undulating terrain” unless you count the Southwest billboard painting.

 

TruHart1

 

Thanks... I think!?!?

 

 

Plus, courtesy of my spellchecker L'Abbé Prévost was given the title of a high ranking university administrative officer in an earlier post...

[whipped guy]

Incidentally the complete audio (sans video) is posted on YouTube. A quick check of some of the score's highlights indicates an exceptional performance. A comparison of the love duet with that of Scotto and Domingo from the MET 1980 reveals that ROH 2014 has more mellifluous pair of lovers who are better able to caress Puccini's gorgeous melodic contours.

 

Incidentally, there are a number of clips courtesy of the ROH to promote the production and its video presentation in theaters. Based on what I was able to determine there ain't much in the way of "trine morbide" (soft lace) in the production!!!

[bostonman]

Based on what I was able to determine there ain't much in the way of "trine morbide" (soft lace) in the production!!!

 

As I said, often in these kind of productions the libretto gets lost in the shuffle. ;-)

 

Of course, when an audience is hearing the work in a foreign language, subtitles or not, there are only a handful of people in the audience who know what's being sung word-for-word enough to notice such discrepancies - I suppose some directors count on that to get away with the changes.