The Dallas Opera production that was to have opened Friday night was Giacomo Meyerbeer's grandiose L'Africaine. The rarely produced five-act opera would have been something of a coup for the company, but an expensive one. When former president and general director Keith Cerny resigned in the middle of last season, the board learned it was facing a $3 million shortfall.
The Meyerbeer was canned, and the company scrambled to find a more popular opera that could use most of the contracted singers. The result was the stripped-down, semi-staged Puccini Manon Lescaut that opened Friday night at the Winspear Opera House. With La bohème next on the schedule, Dallas is getting a Puccini mini-festival.
The action takes place on and around two downstage platforms and a ramp leading off to the right. Music director Emmanuel Villaume, the orchestra and the chorus are also onstage, behind the action. Scenes are vaguely — and I mean vaguely — set with high-res nature photos and artworks projected on a stage-spanning scrim. Tommy Bourgeois costumes principal characters in handsome 18th-century attire; the chorus and madrigal singers are in concert dress.
The opera draws on the same story as Massenet's Manon. A young woman, Manon, and a young chevalier, Des Grieux, fall in love at first sight. But she's carted off by the wealthy Geronte and discovers she loves the rich lifestyle. Des Grieux resurfaces, though, and the old love is rekindled. But their would-be elopement is foiled, and they end up lost somewhere in America, Manon dying at the end.
You could close your eyes Friday night and luxuriate in glorious singing. At age 65, Gregory Kunde, as Des Grieux, still commands a tenor of spine-tingling power and eloquent expression. Kristin Lewis' Manon matches him for vocal splendors, her soprano ranging from a creamy lower register to blazing top notes.
Musa Ngqungwana gives Manon's brother, Lescaut, a lustrous bass-baritone, and Geronte is sonorously portrayed by veteran basso Andrea Silvestrelli. One after another, even smaller roles are luxuriously cast, starting with Jonas Hacker's smart lyric tenor in the role of Edmondo.
But in an age when opera audiences increasingly expect visual verisimilitude, you just can't ignore the fact that Manon's heartthrob here is, well, old enough to be her father. And, until the tragic last scene, which was genuinely moving Friday night, stage director Edward Berkeley has allowed, or encouraged, way too much overacting from the cast. Matthew Grills' high-camp Dance Master is a gratuitous distraction. And what's with that table and chair, decanter of wine, and glass, on the left-hand platform throughout the opera?
But, as I say, you can close your eyes and enjoy lots of wonderful singing. And Villaume shapes warmly expressive playing from the orchestra, even if it's sometimes too loud for the singers.
Details
Repeats at 2 p.m. March 3 and 7:30 p.m. March 6 and 9 at Winspear Opera House, 2403 Flora. $13 to $180. 214-443-1000, dallasopera.org.
