Manon

• Manon Lescaut ( lyric coloratura soprano)
• Poussette ( Lyric Soprano ), Girlfriend
• Javotte ( soubrette ), Girlfriend
• Rosette (mezzo- soprano, and Character alto ), Girlfriend
• Lescaut (baritone ), Manon's cousin
• Chevalier des Grieux (Tenor)
• Count des Grieux, whose father ( bass)
• Guillot de Morfontaine (tenor ), a wealthy farmer
• De Brétigny (baritone ), a nobleman
• The host (Bass)
• Two guardsmen (Tenor)
• Chorus: citizens of Amiens, travelers, guests, Porters, postilion, citizens of Paris, shop assistants, noble ladies, players, swindlers, soldiers

Manon is an opera in five acts by Jules Massenet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille, based on the novel Histoire du Chevalier Des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by Abbé Prévost. The premiere took place on January 19, 1884 at the Opéra -Comique in Paris. Giacomo Puccini in his opera Manon Lescaut (1893 ) processed the same template. This version of Manon by Massenet opera substance displaced temporarily from the repertoire of opera houses. A third processing of the substance has created Hans Werner Henze with the opera Boulevard Solitude.

Meanwhile, the Opera Manon by Jules Massenet is one of the most frequently performed works of French music literature.

Action

Act I

In an inn in Amiens, where the stagecoach stops to Paris, return the Roué Guillot and Brétigny one with three young girlfriends. Guests have hunger and thirst. When the stagecoach arrives, be curious, including the soldier Lescaut, who is his cousin Manon, a young girl from the provinces to collect, gather. You should be brought to the monastery, but the soldier Lescaut is more interested than it, to oversee his pretty cousin on the card game. While she waits for her cousin, Manon are not only clear offers of rich men as Guillot de Morfontaine and Monsieur de Brétigny but must resist, but also learns the young Chevalier Des Grieux know who fell in love at first sight with them. With Des Grieux a decision is taken quickly: Together to escape and start a new life in Paris, which will consist only of love and pleasure!

Second Act

In her Paris apartment Des Grieux and Manon read the letter, with the Des Grieux 's father wants to ask for permission to marry. The two are, however, visited by Lescaut and De Brétigny: Lescaut has expressed shock because of the injured family honor, but can not last through the letter of the sincere intention Des Grieux ' convince you to want to marry Manon. In the meantime you offer De Brétigny to their love for wealth and splendor, when they only authorizes that her lover will forcibly taken away from her on the father's command. With a heavy heart takes Manon farewell to the common life with Des Grieux and leaves the kidnapping happened.

Act Three

First Photo

A folk festival on the Cours -la -Reine in Paris Manon provides opportunity for a dazzling appearance: She is the most beautiful celebrity and she lives only for the moment! Self, who traveled from the province Count Des Grieux, the father of former lover Manon must confess that he could fall to her charms. And Manon honor is even the Ballet of the Opera here a public presentation. From Count Des Grieux Manon learns here that his son soon to be ordained a priest, but Manon will not believe the young Des Grieux could have forgotten them, and sets out to the seminary ...

Second Picture

In the Seminary of Saint -Sulpice Chevalier Des Grieux is swarmed for his gift as a preacher. His father tried one last time to persuade the son to an appropriate marriage, but in vain. The young Des Grieux sends him away: he wants to dedicate his life to God and so defeat the memory of the beloved. As Manon appears, she asks God for help and Des Grieux begs for forgiveness. At the end of the Chevalier can no longer resist her caresses and romantically involved with her again.

Act Four

Manon's need for luxury consumes enormous amounts of money. In the game room at the hotel Transylvania Manon Chevalier forces you to dare his luck in the game to come back to money. Des Grieux finally playing against Guillot and actually wins all the time, why Guillot accuses him of false game and angrily leaves the room, and shortly thereafter come back not only with the police but also with the Father Des Grieux '. To note the young Des Grieux is taken under arrest, while Manon but actually arrested as his accomplice to be brought to the women's prison.

Act Five

Des Grieux is waiting accompanied Lescaut on the road to Paris on the condemned to deportation girls, including Manon, to free them. The hired people but they have already left in the lurch, so that violent liberation attempts appear futile. With the last money Lescaut offers the sergeant, and the deadly ill in prison Manon is released for a short time. A man remains behind to guard Manon. One more time find so together the lovers. Manon repented of their sins and asks her lover for forgiveness. She reminds him of their shared history, to their happiness and tenderness, and dies in his arms.

Formation

Massenet began to deal with Manon in 1881. The premiere took place then on 19 January 1884 the Opéra -Comique in Paris with soprano Marie Heilbron in the title role. The opera called from the start recognition forth.

Music

The opera is created in a through-composed musical Great shape with a short prelude. Thanks to the stylistic unity of the work the Tragédie lyrique in this work achieved one of its highlights. A developed unassuming designs melody, rapid changes in mood that illustrate the fragility of any sensation even within a single number, and a sensitive commentary on mental processes by the orchestra featuring the music, with Massenet, although not (yet) the leitmotif in the manner of Richard Wagner uses, but used recurring musical phrases that identifies the audience with certain characters and situations. The opera is built up from the musical scenes, which in turn often involve closed structure in itself. The typical for the comic genre using the interspersed between the numbers dialogue is modified by Massenet tested instead of pure dialogues various possibilities of melodrama, lets talk for a figure to a music of the orchestra, which only gives the text expressivity.

Effect

Tchaikovsky wrote, for example, in 1884: " The music is very graceful, clever and composed full of care, but it lacks any spark of true inspiration. Despite the excellent performance, I finally felt such tedium that I was only with difficulty until the end. "