The bitch is back? Not really. And actually – digitally, virtually. Manon Lescaut, that spectacularly fallen rococo girl – first a convent pupil, then runaway, lover, courtesan, live-out lady, condemned commercial worker and ultimately terminally ill deportee – quickly became world literature.
In the novel of the Abbot Prévost, who is officially called “Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut” and distributes his sympathies and leading roles very evenly. She was especially loved in opera. Fallen girls who are still singing as they die are simply more personable, especially in Paris.
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Auber, Massenet, Puccini and Henze, these are the most famous composers who took on Manon’s fatal steps from the right moral path. The most sensual setting was achieved by the French raspberry pâtissier Jules Massenet with his five-act act, premiered in 1884 at the Paris Opéra-Comique.
There was – Corona-compatible streams make it possible – now from two transatlantic opera houses at the same time: from the one that was closed last March Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Hamburg State Opera.
Famous Rollendebüt: Lisette Oropesa
What is to be streamed from New York is the glossy “Manon” recording from 2019. The simple, subtly expressive German feature film aesthetics, and not at all Paris-specific, was taken over risk-free from London, where it was the ideal vehicle for Anna Netrebko and Laurent Pelly in 2010 brought out the then aspiring Vittorio Grigolo.
Two years ago, of course – in addition to Michael Fabiano, who was always pressed and singing with too much force – a highly remarkable singer made her Manon debut in it: Lisette Oropesa.
The now 37-year-old lyrical coloratura soprano from Louisiana with Cuban roots, who had made her big European breakthrough in the Parisian Huguenots a year earlier, is unfortunately still far too little known in Germany. Only the Bavarian State Opera has been loyal to her since 2011.
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David Bösch directed Massenet’s “Manon Lescaut” in Hamburg
Quelle: (c)Brinkhoff-Moegenburg
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Her allure is ideally combined with technique, charisma and a radiantly bright soprano voice that is capable of modulation, including a confident coloratura, which she unfolds to perfection in the many Manon facets. Young girlish, flirtatious, seductive, desperate – everything is there and much more.
We look forward to seeing this exceptional singer, who recently took Vienna by storm as Mozart’s Konstanze in the short autumn season, live again soon.
The versatile Manon is also a wise choice for the 30-year-old French-Danish soprano Elsa Dreisigwho is engaged at the Berlin Lindenoper and has now made her debut in Hamburg. She is even more hushed, more permeable, naive, also a little more conservative than the glamorous Oropesa.
Tragedy of black and white dreariness royale
But she has soul and steel, variability and heart. She plays the sexually awakening child who wants to be a great lady and who stumbles terribly. And of course she is totally authentic in the spoken dialog.
In Regietheater-Deutschland, such a work, which tends towards noble kitsch, has to be brushed against the smooth consumption line. Therefore the new one is until January 29th at Ed David Bösch premiere, which can be accessed online free of charge and which will later be played in front of an audience again, by black and white Tristesse royale.
In today’s scruffy, merciless rehearsal stage ambience, the camouflage look, street credibility, silty ambience and amusement arcade tinsel prevail in the few protagonists pacing the empty stage; unfortunately also bad French. Berets and mini Eiffel Tower are sufficient as local color props.
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Young girl-like, flirtatious, seductive, desperate: Lisette Oropesa as Manon at the Met
Those: Marty Sohl / Metropolitan Opera
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Thinned violin melt can be heard from the sparsely occupied trench where Sébastien Rouland routinely holds his position as a conductor. The melodic flattery genius of Massenet’s can be heard more clearly than usual. And the coordination problems of the choristers singing from the audience boxes in the empty auditorium are very clear.
Björn Bürger’s drug addict cousin Lescaut sounds a bit dry. The Romanian tenor Ioan Hotea, who is a dreamy Latino and mixed with mostly fine Voix, received a lot of sympathy points. The director even treats him to a love death.
In Hamburg you can really experience the “Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut”. Even if completely kissless due to the pandemic. And in the end in the snow, the cat is dead and the “C’est la vie” sign is broken. Hopefully no notice on the wall.
And the winner is? With Lisette Oropesa, the New York “Manon” has the ideal, almost too self-assured embodiment of this classic nanny. Music is played and staged more opulent. Michael Fabiano’s Lescaut, on the other hand, is a little more subtle than Björn Bürger’s. In Hamburg, Elsa Dreisig sings more sensitively and sensitively, at the same time a little homely. Des Grieux by Ioan Hotea is dreamy and sensual. The rest in Hamburg looks corona-thinned and is joyless Teutonic director theater sadness.
