Manon Lescaut in rehearsal, photo: Krzysztof Bieliński / Teatr Wielki - Opera Narodowa
Following premiere showings in Warsaw to begin the season in October 2012, director Mariusz Treliński takes Puccini’s opera to Brussel's major opera stage. Two weeks of performances feature a special live transmission to 26 cinemas across Belgium and France
With his production of Manon Lescaut, Treliński makes his debut at La Monnaie, one of Europe’s major stages and known for its experimental approach to the opera. The performances are conducted by the Italian Carlo Rizzi, with Eva-Maria Westbroek as Manon Lescaut, Brandon Jovanovich as Des Grieux and Aris Argiris as Lescaut, Manon’s brother. Stage design is by Boris Kudliczka, who teams with Treliński in the director's daring productions.
In the libretto, passion and flight end with solitude in the desert and Manon’s heartrending aria "Ah, non voglio morir!". The work is in the style of the "adventure opera", with the heroine and her lover, Des Grieux, taken from France to New Orleans, and from the splendour of a Paris apartment to prison and finally deportation. Love and poverty, opportunism and money, desire and murder… All are intermingled in the novel by Abbé Prévost that inspired Puccini, to the extent that it was banned on publication in 1731. The opera met with instant success in 1893, confirming the composer's talent in setting unforgettable dramatic scenes to music.
Manon Lescaut is Treliński's fourth staging of a Puccini opera, having directed Madame Butterfly, Turandot and La Boheme. Treliński shifted the story of Puccini’s characters into the contemporary reality of the corporate world, from the 18th-century Paris and New Orleans of the libretto. The original figure of the Chevalier des Grieux and the beautiful Manon Lescaut now find themselves in a subway station. The director explains:
In the original version of the opera, the characters are constantly moving. In our interpretation, the cities are replaced with metro stations, which represent the phases of love, fascination and fall of the main protagonist. The whole story actually takes place in his mind, and it is a very subjective one.
Treliński admits that Manon Lescaut tells the story of a woman dreamt of and fantasised by all, but also a woman that doesn’t exist:
I am intrigued by Puccini’s portrayal of the relationships between men and women. He never depicts a relationship that would be parallel, symmetrical or equal for both partners. (…) There are always situations in which the strong and confident man dominates. He meets a lost and unhappy girl, the Butterfly type. Or, it is the other way around: the man falls into the trap of a demonic prototype of the femme fatale, a woman who threatens him and destroys him – such as Turandot or the said Manon.
The current staging of his production has significant changes – in the cast, and in the script itself and the set design. Treliński is critical of the Warsaw performances, commenting that he had experienced a certain failure. The premiere production was a broken one, in his opinion, and with the present staging in Brussels, he has made modifications to improve the piece, and emphasises his faith in the new cast.
The director also revealed that a huge inspiration on his staging came from cinema classics: works of Alfred Hitchcock, David Lynch, Luis Bunuel and Wong Kar-Wai.
If we recall Buñuel’s That Obscure Object of Desire, in which two actresses played the same woman, or Lost Highway from David Lynch in which one actress portrayed two different women (…) we can come to a conclusion a man is incapable of grasping the essence of feminity and sees in it a playful masquarade series and a game.
The director remarked that he is writing a film script and intends to work again in what he calls his first medium, the cinema.
Manon Lescaut is screened live on the 29th of January across 26 cinemas in Belgium and France. The transmission is part of the Long Live the Opera! Series, conducted by the UGC cinema network.
A co-production of La Monnaie and the Welsh National Opera in Cardiff, Manon Lescaut premiered in Poland in late October, 2012. The performances at La Monnaie take place from the 24th of January till the 8th of February 2013, with the Welsh premiere scheduled for spring of 2014.
Editor: SRS
Source: press release, PAP, La Monnaie, Welsh National Opera