Subject: Manon, ENO, 12Jun98

Manon Lescaut        Rosa Mannion
des Grieux           John Hudson
Lescaut              Ashley Holland
Count des Grieux     John Connell
Poussette            Gail Pearson
Javotte              Sally Harrison
Rosette              Nerys Jones
Guillot              Andrew Mee
De Bretigny          Christopher Booth-Jones

Conductor            Michael Lloyd
Director             David MacVicar
Translator           Edmund Tracey

I decided to give Massanet another go. My previous experience of his work
was finding that I really didn't want to listen to this at all during the
ENO's Don Quichotte last year. I wasn't just bored -- I was seriously
annoyed by the inconsequential tootlings and fragments of coloratura,
remniscent of when they do opera in a 1930s movie, and the little bits of
Carmen. But David MacVicar, who directed the briliant Opera North Sweeney
Todd, commented that Massenet was the 1880s equivalent of Sondheim, and I
was curious to see what he would make of Manon.

I can see MacVicar's point, up to a point. Manon, like Don Quichotte, is an
integrated piece of music theatre. It just happens that neither is the sort
of theatre that means much to me. Don Quichotte is a comic-strip
exploitation of a mass-media icon. (I suppose part of what irritates me
about it that it pretty much never touches the sources of the greatness of
Cervantes' novel -- the role of imagination and emotion in goodness, the
responsibility of writers to humanity, and the wide-ranging wit, humour and
sympathy of the novel.) Manon is yet another version of a familar, resonant
narrative that canonizes the pure whore of nineteenth-century French
fantasy. Massenet improves the texture of the drama substantially by
referring to the story's eighteenth centurury origins with allusions to
baroque music, and a thoroughgoing pastiche of a baroque ballet in act 3.
But the result is a more attractive musical decor rather than a more
evocative drama.

And of course Sondheim, as well as dealing with original and often
contemporary themes, also writes amazing lyrics from which his melodies are
inseparable. As far as I can tell, there's nothing at all interesting about
Massenet's librettos except well-crafted dramatic organization. And in
Manon, the music for her "youth's the season" aria in act 3 is pretty
indistinguishable from her lament later in the act. Not that either is
remotely memorable.

David MacVicar's production at the ENO looked good. It was set in the
original period of the novel, and strongly and appropriately evoked
Hogarth's Rake's Progress. The story is essentially des Grieux' own rake's
progress, and Massenet's score could be seen as a foreshadowing of
Stravinsky's (which also demands a full-decor staging). There was a segment
of sloping circus seating at the back. Furniture was brought on as
required, and reused in different scenes. The Hogarthian decor was provided
mainly by the large number of people milling around, who also served as an
ever-present audience to the dramas of the principals. The costumes were,
according to MacVicar, authentic for the period, and the visual effect was
beautiful in spite of the dull grey-brown set because of the rich, if
subdued, colours.

I couldn't get excited about the performances, though. Rosa Mannion looks
great, doing the transition from naughty teenager to high-class courtesan
to dying heroine perfectly -- she can do the decolletage. But her singing
sounded strained and out of kilter. Some notes actually sounded split to
me, like a reed instrument going wrong. John Hudson was pleasant vocally
and in appearance as des Grieux, but he didn't do anything with the initial
characterization as an uptight scholar, dropping his books and taking off
his specs before walking into Manon. You couldn't see the potential priest
in him, or the forerunner of Werther and Wilhelm Meister. Ashley Holland
made Lescaut into a rough diamond geezer who won't let anybody else
interfere with his women and is regarded as a great gent because of it,
even if he abuses them himself. He and John Connell as des Grieux pere both
sounded suitably butch.

The most entertaining performance was Anthony Mee as Guillot. He was wigged
and padded up to look like the man being bled in Hogarth's Election Supper,
and delivered some amusing old-style theatricality. He reminded me of the
old sultan in the 1940 Thief of Bagdad, full of childish joy in his girlies
and his ballet. Mee has a very beautiful, not quite Italian, tenor voice.
I'm afraid he's stuck as a character tenor because he's not very tall.

The ballet, Acteon yet again as it happens, was done in slightly flaky
baroque style and was probably the high point of the evening.

Massenet's not Lloyd Weber -- his music isn't derivative or plonkingly
predicable --, but he's a direct ancestor of the types who wrote Les Mis,
and also of the naffer brand of decorative silent movies. I'm holding out
for the Gershwins and King Vidor.