Seductive, in every sense, is the mot juste for Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon. Essential viewing. The audience is on its feet en masse at curtain call.
Hard to believe it’s the fiftieth anniversary of his Manon. Hard to believe I actually studied Abbé Prévost’s 1731 novel L’Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut in the original at university, a callow nineteen-year-old. Not hard to believe that MacMillan found its sordid, pornographic, misogynistic morality suitable material for his inspiration.
Abject poverty and the corrupt ancient regime at its most entitled with money to buy anything and anyone, scattering coins on the ground for sport just to see the beggars and harlots scramble for it—the revolution didn't come soon enough.
Money or love, you can’t have both. Manon and des Grieux try. But Manon and her pimp brother Lescaut see where the trade is. He pimps her to Monsieur GM, whose shameless, lascivious proclivities a suitably venal Gary Avis has no shame in exhibiting. He owns her and her brother, shackling her with jewels and furs.
At the high-class brothel, she is passed around from male hand to hand like property. Detached, knowing her own worth, she parades like the queen of the salon, whilst Avis takes his fun elsewhere, secure in his bought possession. Poor des Grieux doesn’t stand a chance in this milieu.
A silly notion that he can win at cards with her owner leads to Manon’s downfall and her brother’s cold-blooded murder—the aristocracy had no need of courts, they had their own mercenaries. Does this sound familiar or timely?
She is sent to the colonies, where the Gaoler (Nicol Edmonds) is a mirror image of Monsieur GM and the local society a microcosm of Paris. I have seen Avis in that role in the past. He tries to buy her with a diamond bracelet and then rapes her. Des Grieux kills him and they flee for their lives. She dies in his arms in the damp Louisiana bayou. In an amazing horizontal pas de deux as he tries to keep her alive.
It’s a realistic tale, very much of its time. Sitting behind a pillar, I feel as if I am spying on proceedings like a sneaky Prévost, but if as is said Abbé Prévost’s tale was autobiographical, he must have been right in the midst of things. It feeds directly into MacMillan’s penchant for dark sexual and psychological drama—no holds barred.
The pas de deux are thrilling, the choreography demanding, Massenet’s music with its motifs and liturgical accents is so quietly exquisite, drawing you in to every emotion, heart in mouth. I hear groans and gasps in the row in front of mine at a significant moment…
Tonight Francesca Hayward makes Manon her own—it's a marathon of a performance and she doesn't put a foot wrong, secure, strong. I’ve reviewed Manon some eight times, last saw it in 2019, seen various casts and she is outstanding. Those wonderful arms and shoulders…
Partnered by Marcelino Sambé, once a fine Lescaut, now debuting in the role of des Grieux, and Alexander Campbell as Lescaut (he’s been a des Grieux)—apparently Anthony Dowell and David Wall of the original cast (Antoinette Sibley cast against type was Manon) alternated the roles too. The drunken duet between Lescaut and his Mistress injects much-needed light relief into the evening.
There is so much action, so many characters each with their own backstories, it’s impossible to catch it all in one glance. If you look one way, you miss something in the other corner. Sambé looks lost in the demi-monde environment. See if you can keep track of him in that melée. And all the while, a tragic tale unfolds. The detail is astonishing, the acting superb.
I am still knocked breathless by the talents of MacMilllan. Manon is cinematic on the Royal Opera House broad stage filled with activity against Nicholas Georgiadis’s set design (it is also the hundredth anniversary of his death), full with beggar boys, pickpockets, harlots (Mayara Magri has fun as Lescaut’s Mistress), rich men on the trawl, dangerous liaisons.
Absolutely stunning. Three acts about forty minutes each are packed with action, emotion and MacMillan’s anger. An angry young man, someone once said, born in 1929, died too young in 1992. He is much missed, but what a treasure trove of work he has left behind.
Yasmine Naghdi and Fumi Kaneko will debut as Manon; William Bracewell and Calvin Richardson as Lescaut. And… it will be broadcast live to cinemas on Wednesday 7 February with Natalia Osipova and Reece Clarke in the lead roles, encores from Sunday 11 February. Not to be missed if you can’t make the live performance.