Eyre's Puccini's Manon Lescaut Coming to PBS's GREAT PERFORMANCES AT THE MET
By: Caryn Robbins Jul. 18, 2016
Puccini's lush classic Manon Lescaut airs on THIRTEEN'S GREAT PERFORMANCES AT THE MET Saturday, August 13 at 11 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). (In New York, THIRTEEN will air the opera on Friday, August 26 at 9 p.m.)
Kristine Opolais and Roberto Alagna who will team again on the GREAT PERFORMANCES AT THE MET broadcast of Puccini's Madama Butterfly also in August star as the ill-fated lovers at the center of Manon Lescaut, Puccini's passionate adaptation of the classic novel about a free-spirited country girl who becomes the toast of Paris.
Sir Richard Eyre's new production, set in the 1940s, reunites him with set designer Rob Howell, his collaborator on recent Met productions of Le Nozze di Figaro, Werther, and Carmen. Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi conducts the new staging, which also stars Massimo Cavalletti as Manon's cousin, Lescaut, and Brindley Sherratt as Geronte, her wealthy older lover.
While the Met planned this production to feature Opolais's interpretation of the title role, which she has sung to acclaim at the Bavarian State Opera and the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, Roberto Alagna, a star at the Met for 20 years, was a late addition to the cast. When Jonas Kaufmann withdrew from the production due to illness while rehearsals were underway, Alagnaat the Met starring in Pagliacciagreed to undertake the challenge of learning the new staging and preparing a role he has never before sung onstage in the two weeks leading up to the premiere.
The opera had its world premiere in Turin in 1893, and was first given at the Met in 1907. Few operas have surpassedManon Lescautin the depiction of the urgency of young love. The French tale of a beautiful young woman destroyed by her conflicting needs for love and luxury had already inspired Massenet's Manon (1884), a relatively new and immensely popular work at the time ofManon Lescaut's premiere. Puccini made the story his own and infused it with a new level of frank emotion and a flood of melody.The opera was his first great success, leading George Bernard Shaw to name him "the successor to Verdi."
The first three acts of the opera take place in various locations in France, around the year 1720: the first in the town of Amiens, the second in a magnificent palace in Paris, and the third on the waterfront of the port city of Le Havre. The fourth act is set in a desolate location in the New World, an imaginary place described in the libretto as "a vast desert near the outskirts of New Orleans." Richard Eyre's new production moves the action to the 1940s.
Reviewing the present production, The New York Times noted, "As Manon, the soprano Kristine Opolais sounded as glamorous as she looked... And this was another fine night for the conductor Fabio Luisi, who coaxed plush, textured playing from the impressive Met Orchestra, while bringing refreshing restraint and lucid detail to Puccini's often teeming score."
Soprano Deborah Voigt hosts the broadcast.
Manon Lescautwas originally seen live in movie theaters on March 5 as part of the groundbreaking The Met: Live in HD series, which transmits live performances to more than 2,000 movie theaters and performing arts centers in over 70 countries around the world. The Live in HD series has reached a record-breaking 20 million viewers since its inception in 2006.
GREAT PERFORMANCES at the Metis a presentation of THIRTEEN Productions LLC for WNET, one of America's most prolific and respected public media providers.
Corporate support for GREAT PERFORMANCES at the Metis provided by Toll Brothers, America's luxury home builder. Major funding for the Met Opera presentation is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. This GREAT PERFORMANCES presentation is funded by the Irene Diamond Fund, the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Arts Fund, The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, The Agnes Varis Trust, The Joseph & Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, Ellen and James S. Marcus, and public television viewers.
For the Met, Gary Halvorson directs the telecast. Jay David Saks is Music Producer. Mia Bongiovanni and Elena Park are Supervising Producers, and Louisa Briccetti and Victoria Warivonchik are Producers. Peter Gelb is Executive Producer. For Great Performances, Bill O'Donnell is Series Producer; David Horn is Executive Producer.
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About the Met THE METROPOLITAN OPERAis America's leading performing arts organization and a vibrant home for the world's most creative and talented artists, including singers, conductors, composers, orchestra musicians, stage directors, designers, visual artists, choreographers, and dancers. The company presents more than 200 performances each season of a wide variety of operas, ranging from early masterpieces to contemporary works. In recent years, the Met has launched many initiatives designed to make opera more accessible, most prominently the Live in HD series of cinema transmissions, which dramatically expands the Met audience by allowing select performances to be seen in more than 2,000 theaters in 70 countries around the world.
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