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Associated Press, September
28, 2008 |
F.N. D'ALESSIO |
Massenet: Manon, Chicago, 27 September 2008
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Lyric Opera of Chicago opens season with 'Manon'
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How so much voice — and so much emotional force
— can pour out of a person as tiny as Natalie Dessay should be one of the
great mysteries of the opera world.
The much-in-demand French soprano compounded that mystery Saturday when she
kicked off the 2008-09 season of Lyric Opera of Chicago as the title
character in Jules Massenet's 1884 "Manon."
Dessay easily held the audience in the palm of one very petite hand, from
the moment she stepped on stage in Act 1 as a convent-bound provincial girl
until her Act 5 death as a prisoner about to be deported to America for
immorality. At various points in between, she was a runaway young lover, a
rich man's plaything in Paris and the seductress of an about-to-be ordained
priest — right in the church, no less.
And throughout the story, Dessay stayed true to her concept of the
character, whom she sees not as the femme fatale portrayed by many other
sopranos, but as a typical teenager — willful and a bit confused.
Dessay was already working as an actress when she first learned she had a
singing voice, and it's a tribute to her dramatic skills that, at 43, she
can so convincingly play a teenager. It doesn't hurt, either, that she has
the body of an Olympic gymnast.
Best known for her comic roles, Dessay came only recently to the pathos of
"Manon," but her previous performances in the role, at Geneva and Barcelona,
Spain, were greatly acclaimed. Chicago should prove no different,
particularly because she is a perfect fit for the production that director
David McVicar originally created for the English National Opera and reprised
in Barcelona last year, with Dessay starring.
McVicar depicts 1720s France as a seedy sort of place, with only Manon and
her young true love, the Chevalier des Grieux (sung by German tenor Jonas
Kaufmann) managing to escape the overall atmosphere of cynicism, drunkenness
and dinginess.
Kaufmann is a fine partner for Dessay, handsome enough to make their love
at first sight convincing and strong enough vocally to blend with her,
particularly in their Act 1 and Act 2 duets ("Et je sais votre nom" and "On
l'appelle Manon") and in the Act 3 seduction scene in the Church of St.
Sulpice.
The two leads make their playful and doomed young love so palpable that
Dessay has no problem in making her farewell to the humble furnishings of
their Paris apartment ("Adieu, notre petite table") an emotional highlight
of the opera.
The other principals are also effective. American baritone Christopher
Feigum truly seems drunk most of the time as Manon's cousin Lescaut, a
gambling-addicted lout who precipitates much of the tragedy and encounters
his own conscience only in the sad final scene. Another American baritone,
Jake Gardner, has a fine voice and effectively shows the moral and romantic
ambiguity of the aristocrat De Bretigny, who keeps Manon as his mistress for
a time.
As the unsympathetic father, the Count des Grieux, American bass Raymond
Aceto has relatively little to do, but he does it with undeniable authority.
Special mention should go to character tenor David Cangelosi, who has the
opera's most nearly villainous role, that of aging aristocrat and would-be
dirty old man Guillot de Morfontaine. With his red suit and shoulder-length
white wig, Cangelosi's Guillot is a ridiculous elderly fop who never quite
manages to buy Manon — or any other woman, for that matter.
The Lyric orchestra for the current production is under the baton of French
conductor Emmanuel Villaume. There are 10 more performances, the last on
Oct. 31. |
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