As opera prodigy Puccini’s first widespread success, Manon Lescaut opened the doors for his legendary body of work which includes La Boheme, Tosca and Madama Butterfly. However, the difficulty of its score has led to it being outshone by the Italian’s other greatest hits like Turandot. By bringing the story from the 18th century to the present, the Royal Opera House is betting that modern audiences will be enchanted by the classic piece.
“The major difference between this and the traditional Manon Lescaut is that they have a horse wagon on stage and we have a real Mercedes car...” explains choreographer Denni Sayers.
Shepherded by rising opera director Jonathan Kent (The Tempest), the show premiered in London’s Covent Garden this July, the first time it had been performed there in 30 years. While some purists were dismayed with the changes, Sayers is content with the overall reaction.
“It’s full of wonderful tunes and people rediscovered this wonderful music,” she says.“Many people were deeply touched and cried in the end. Opera’s audience isn’t so young and that can be a problem all over the world. This is a great opportunity to get young people enjoying opera.”
The Shanghai Grand Theatre is hoping that’s the case. This coproduction between the Royal Opera House and the Shanghai Opera serves as the opening for their performance season. They’ve invited soprano Svetla Vassileva and tenor Gustavo Porto to star as the titular character and her penniless lover.
Sayers is optimistic about the show’s reception. “I think for Shanghai audiences this will be quite a new convention of opera,” she says. “Especially for those who don’t understand Italian, they have to be able to follow the story through our actors. We work a lot with body language and we want it to look like real people having real conversations.”
In town to prepare the chorus, she admits,“I’ve made them work really hard because it’s a production about young people, so I need their youthful energy.”
Youth is definitely served in this adaptation of Manon Lescaut, with characters fiddling on iPhones and iPads, a nod to these digital times and as Sayers eloquently puts, "it’s a life lived through screens.” They’ve added a reality show setting to the third act, with the chorus acting like a raucous audience on a competition show akin to Britain’s Got Talent or The Voice.
Despite the accoutrements, this version of Manon Lescaut follows the essence of the original libretto, staying true to the original themes of a girl’s struggle to choose love over fortune, or the other way around.Manon must decide what she wants in life, choosing between a suitor she adores but is poor and another that is able to provide the luxurious life she desires.
One scene cleverly nods to the show's roots. When the rich old suitor puts Manon back into a glass cage, the set is deliberately “decorated like a room from the 18th century, creating a sense that he wants to freeze her in time.”
“It’s really about women being objectified,”Sayers concludes. “And she prefers to die rather than be turned into an object.”
// Sep 3-7, 7.30pm, RMB180-1,280. Shanghai Grand Theatre, tickets.
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