Manon Lescaut, opera review: Sondra Radvanovsky gets inside the role of Manon

Jonathan Kent's production works hard to make this story of fallen grace resonate, writes Nick Kimberley
High emotional temperature: Sondra Radvanovsky as Manon Lescaut and Aleksandrs Antonenko as Chevalier des Grieux
Bill Cooper
Nick Kimberley23 November 2016

The musical paraphernalia of Puccini’s operas – hyper-refined vocal style, garrulous chorus, vast orchestra – are good at portraying love and loss, pain and exaltation. They manage less well with misery and abjection.

In Manon Lescaut, the music too often prettifies the title character’s trajectory from virginal innocent to rich man’s plaything, then imprisoned sex worker and finally doomed outcast.

Jonathan Kent’s production, first seen in 2014, works hard to make the story resonate. Where Puccini set the opera in the 18th Century, Paul Brown’s sets and costumes are unequivocally modern. If not everything works, the final two acts cut to the quick, and where the production flags, the orchestra props things up.

Conductor Antonio Pappano keeps things moving at a furious pace, allowing no time for applause, which ratchets up the emotional temperature. At times the orchestra overwhelms the singers but little by little, Aleksandrs Antonenko, playing Des Grieux, Manon’s true love, eventually draws strength from the storm rising from the pit.

It’s Manon who matters, though. Sondra Radvanovsky captures her vulnerability, as well as her strength. Her voice is dark, desolate, occasionally even ugly: she doesn’t just sing the role, she’s inside it.

Arts picks of the week: 21st-27th November

1/7

Until December 12, Royal Opera House; roh.org.uk

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