Manon Lescaut review: Every bit as desolate as Puccini wanted

Puccini was thoroughly Italian but he was often inspired by foreign locations: Japan, China, gold-rush California all figure in his operas. If his geo-political understanding was sketchy, his creativity thrived on exoticism.

Manon Lescaut opens conventionally enough in 18th-century France but closes in the Louisiana desert, locations that encompass the rise and precipitous fall of the title character. We meet her as a girl about to enter a convent; waylaid, she shacks up with handsome young Des Grieux, is enticed away by a rich old man who, once spurned, gets her arrested and deported to Louisiana.

Director Karolina Sofulak sets her production in the Sixties, perhaps in Paris, perhaps London: anywhere where the sweet life has turned sour. Although she creates a sense of bustle in the way she handles the chorus, the hubbub of extraneous detail sometimes distracts from the main action, yet she secures strong performances from her two principals.

Peter Auty’s tenorial tumescence makes Des Grieux suitably ardent, even when the top of his voice sounds strained, but on opening night, soprano Elizabeth Llewellyn was recovering from laryngitis. Yet her Manon proved credible, a victim of the men around her and her own turmoil. Instead of dying in the desert, this Manon finds herself on a dingy urban street, backing slowly away from her grieving lover. Not what Puccini imagined, but Llewellyn makes the scene every bit as desolate as the composer wanted.

Until Jun 26 (0300 999 1000, operahollandpark.com)