Manon Lescaut

Saw an opera on film yesterday. It was Manon Lescaut, a romantic tragedy  based on L'Histoire du Chevalier Des Grieux et Manon Lascaut (The History of Chevalier of Greiux and Manon Lascaut)  written by l' Abbé Prévost and adapted into an opera by Massenet in 1884, starring that magical operatic pair Anna Netrebko as Manon,  Rolando Villazón as Chevalier des Grieux  and Daniel Barenboim conducting the Staats Kapelle Berlin. It's was filmed live in June 2007 at the Gran Teatro Liceu but reset in the 1950's America style costumes and stage props.

As the film opens we see Manon, a starry-eyed country girl about to go into  local pub frequented by the rich and famous  and dreaming of glamor. She dazzled every male there upon entry and drew instant attention of a succession of male suitors. Then a melancholy Chevalier enters because he has just been told by his father, the Comte des Grieux ( Christof Fischesser) that he must enter the monastery to add social prestige to their noble line. He fell in love at first sight  with Manon and the two had a passionate and tempestuous love affair. With his share of his mother's inheritance, they moved off to live in Paris and for a while were completely happy. But this was not to last because Geronte, a rich Government tax man, who was also madly in love with Manon whom he thought he must have, arranged to abduct Manon but the soldiers sent to do so were moved by how deeply they felt for each other upon seeing the pair of lovebirds and decided to let them go. But soon, Chevalier ran out of money and Manon dumped him because he simply could no longer give her the kind of life that she craved.  She reluctantly became Geronte's mistress. To relieve Manon from her misery, Geronte brought in some ballet dancers to entertain her and Manon is happy again. As the film progressed, we see that Manon couldn't really forget Chevalier. She could endure her intolerable absence from Chevalier no more and went to the monastery to find him and to ask for forgiveness. Initially he refused to go with her. He said that he had already purified his heart and there was now nothing there but God. But Manon would not let him go so easily. She reminded him of the happy times they spent together and how she could no longer live without him. He wavered, torn between his denial of his deeply repressed love for her and his memory of their past happiness. As she sang of the details of their love, he could resist no more and in a fit of courage, he decided to abandon his monastic life. They went to Paris again. There at the instigation of Manon, Chevalier decided to stake his future and his fortune on the gambling table when his resources dwindled by the day. The god of fortune smiled upon him and blessed him with beginner's luck. He won one game after another and left with huge sums of money.  But fate soon caught up with them. Chevalier's father arranged for him to be arrested upon a tip off by Geronte, for illegal gambling. They were separated and Manon underwent great torture. She was to be deported to Louisiana but Manon's cousin Lescaut ( Afredo Daza) bribed the guardsman and arranged for Manon to be brought from her prison to meet Chevalier for another escape.  It was too late. She had suffered so  much physical torture in the interval that she had lost all will to live and all hope. She said she felt she did not have enough strength for the risky escape. After renewing their profound love for each other, she died in his arms.

Netrebko was completely convincing as the initially innocent and lovely country girl who made her way into high Parisian society with her beauty, became corrupted by wealth but later found that there was something more important, her love for Chevalier, torn between her desire for a life of luxury and the demands of her heart., between frivolity and fidelity.  She was cast like first Audrey Hepburn, then at the height of her success, as Marilyn Monroe, then finally with closely cropped hair in coarse prisoner's uniform as Ingrid Bergman (as in the film Joan of Arc ?). She is marvelously  fitted for the role. She has beauty, a certain innocence with her big eyes, great acting skills and a soprano voice which is powerful, strain free in all registers, lushious even velvety. Villazón too is her match in singing and sings with great passion but a little less in acting. It was a most enjoyable film. It lasted nearly three hours! Yet there was not a single dull moment. Baritone Manuel Lanza is also good as Lescaut, Monon's cousin and  Barenboim excellent as conductor.