Manon, Jules Massenet

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When Abbé Antoine-François Prévost wrote L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut in 1731, he probably didn’t imagine it would provide someday inspiration for operatic composers; yet for Auber, Massenet, Puccini and others, it did. Jules Massenet's score portrays the French Regency period which saw the twilight of an old world unable to move forward, and the apparent birth of a new world offering plentiful promises of freedom.

The protagonist Manon is a complex character, torn between the old and the new. She avoids being sent to a convent and ultimately embarks on a life of lasciviousness and wrongdoing. Her personal leap into the void is her passionate but self-destructive love affair with Des Grieux, a brief but delightful parenthesis which comes to a tragic end.

From a misogynistic viewpoint, Manon's strength and ability to embody wrongdoing and moral ruin have made her a literary myth on a par with the likes of Cleopatra, Eve, Salome, Carmen, and other powerful yet tragic female figures from history. 

Don’t miss this powerful performance at the Gran Teatre del Liceu.

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