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The Telegraph, 18 Jun 2014 |
By Rupert Christiansen |
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Puccini: Manon Lescaut, Royal Opera House London, June 17, 2014 |
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Manon Lescaut, Royal Opera House, review: 'soulless production'
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There are few things in opera more depressing than watching great singers
struggling in the face of an obstructive and pretentious production. Yet
alas that is the case with the Royal Opera’s first presentation of Puccini’s
Manon Lescaut for more than 30 years.
Jonathan Kent’s concept may
sound acceptable in outline: predictably, it opts for a contemporary setting
in which wide-eyed Manon arrives – from eastern Europe? – with her pimp of a
brother at a sleazy casino and becomes the fluffy mistress of a banker. He
forces her into soft porn (accompanied by the Act 2 pastorale) and then
kicks her into sex-traffic hell when he discovers her two-timing.
The
final two acts take place in a dystopian nightmare which shows Manon and the
other fallen women parading past a showbizzy MC and then bundled out through
a giant advertising hoarding on to what looks like a motorway flyover
shattered by an earthquake.
But leaving aside the deliberate
hideousness of Paul Brown’s designs (which make this perhaps the visually
ugliest show at Covent Garden in living memory), this is one of those
productions which just doesn’t engage with the score – Puccini creates an
atmosphere of lush melancholy romance, but Kent can interpret it all only in
terms of today’s headlines, and the clumsy brutality of his scenario
flattens the plausibility of the story and the characters without
illuminating or explaining them.
In the title role, Kristine Opolais
sings with all the lovely lyrical ache and poise that Puccini must have
dreamt of, while nobly submitting to the humiliations Kent inflicts on her.
I long to see her Manon dressed à la Watteau.
The production leaves
des Grieux as nothing more than a handsome guy in a sharp suit – something
which Jonas Kaufmann scarcely needs to impersonate. Vocally, he was slow to
move into top gear (“Donna non vidi mai” lacked the expansive ease that
Domingo brought to it), but he fired his big guns in Act 3 and sounded the
appropriate lachrymose notes when the game was up. I suspect, however, this
is a role that he won’t return to.
There’s excellent work from the
snappy Christopher Maltman as Lescaut, Benjamin Hulett as the student
Edmondo and Nadezhda Karyazina as a lesbianic Musicista. No complaints about
the conducting either: Antonio Pappano has Puccini in his bones, and fired
the music with all the heart-on-sleeve passion that the soulless production
lacked.
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