Opera News & Press

Live Review: Manon Lescaut in Opera Now

Read a review of Manon Lescaut in Opera Now.

Live Review: Manon Lescaut (click to read full article with photos)

Karyl Charna Lynn

On Saturday, January 17, 2009, the New Orleans Opera returns to its newly restored home, the Mahalia Jackson Theatre for the Performing Arts, three and a half years after hurricane Katrina severely damaged the structure. Opera Now’s US correspondent, Karyl Charna Lynn, will be there, reporting on the company’s long awaited homecoming celebration and refurbished opera house. Here, she reports from the final production in the temporary space that was used by New Orleans opera during its exile.

There’s a bitter irony in a New Orleans audience watching Manon die in the desert outside of their city. As everyone knows, the problem there is not too little water, but too much. And because in 2005 hurricane Katrina flooded its permanent home, the Mahalia Jackson Theatre for the Performing Arts, the company has been performing in a wingless, fly-less, and tiny pit auditorium while the theatre has been repaired. Despite these obstacles, the company offered an attractive, if predictable, staging of the opera that captured the desperate passion between Manon and Des Grieux with dazzling singing and believable acting so their defiance of social convention and the resulting tragic consequences was credible.

Manon Lescaut hadn’t been performed in the city in more than three decades, although Massenet’s Manon is popular fare, due to the French connection, so the supertitles, in addition to translating what was sung, offered periodic explanations of the story, putting the action in context for the audience.

Surmounting the inherent difficulties in staging opera in a venue not built for it with creative use of the limited stage space, the production offered handsome sets which realistically, (and by necessity, simplistically) recreated the different locations (Amiens Square, Bedroom in Geronte’s House, Le Havre, New Orleans ‘desert’), but it was the galvanising chemistry of the cast which made it an evening to remember. Melody Moore was an exciting Manon, with volcanic eruptions of vibrant, yet nuanced singing. Her ‘sola, perduta, abbandonata’ was achingly intense. Roy Smith sang Des Grieux with impassioned artistry, with an idiomatic ringing Italianate sound and fine vocal colour. ‘Guardate, pazzo son’ tore the heartstrings.

Brian Mulligan (Lescaut) has a notable instrument with an individual vocal timbre. Timothy Nolen portrayed Geronte with aplomb. Of special note was the New Orleans Opera Chorus, under Carol Rausch's direction, which proved a formidable asset throughout the performance.

Puccini’s opera reflects a fusion of strong French influence, with its melodic evocation of atmosphere and place. Puccini made reference to ‘powder and minuets’ from Massenet’s Manon, along with Wagner’s chromatic music, leitmotifs and musical depiction of unrestrained passion from Tristan und Isolde, and music that he borrowed from his own earlier compositions. Under the capable baton of Robert Lyall, the 38-musician orchestra not only expertly captured the diverse aspects of the music, but offered a surprisingly rich, full sound that belied its small size.

Karyl Charna Lynn’s report on the opening of the restored Mahalia Jackson Theatre for the Performing Arts in New Orleans will be posted in our web news section. A full report will appear in the March/April issue of Opera Now.