SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Met Opera Live: Puccini: Manon Lescaut : Soloists, chorus and orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera, New York James Levine (coductor)  broadcast live to the Barbican Cinema, London 16.2.2008 (JPr)


Reviewing opera broadcasts live in the cinema is  like reviewing an art exhibition from its catalogue perhaps, but it is a way of bringing opera to more people  at an affordable price, in this case £25 per ticket. This relay was, I understand, also available at selected Cineworld Cinemas throughout the UK: it was sold out in Central London's Barbican Cinema.

After eighteen years, the Metropolitan Opera has returned to a 1980 production of Puccini's Manon Lescaut which is therefore about 28 years old. Written in 1890-92 and first put on in 1893 although it was his third opera,  Manon Lescautt was Puccini's first great international success. Abbé Prévost's novel (L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut) about the lovelorn des Grieux and his fickle mistress had already inspired two French operas, Auber's 1856 Manon Lescaut and Massenet's 1884 Manon - and indeed Marcello Giordani,  the des Grieux in this broadcast, was reminded that he had sung this with Renée Fleming as Manon. Given that the latter was popular then (and it remains frequently performed today)  Puccini's publisher Ricordi, was not very keen to finance a new opera based on the self-same story. Puccini ignored the strongly held reservations he received and continued to produce a work entirely different from its predecessors.

As Marcello Giordani noted, Massenet's bel canto version is interested in ‘religious values’, Puccini's highly melodramatic verismo opera sentimentalises Manon downplaying her duplicity and with des Grieux remaining faithful until death: here we can concentrate on what Puccini cares most about  ‘love between a man and a girl’.  James Levine, a veteran of a record 2174 Met performances but  conducting his first Met performances of the work since 1981, said that ‘Puccini is one of the real musical and theatrical magicians. The music is not supposed to sound difficult but it is. In a few days in 1893 came the première of Puccini’s first great opera and Verdi’s last (Falstaff).’ The music of Manon Lescaut includes some of Puccini’s most luxuriant melodies.

This Met production is just pure old-fashioned, realistic spectacle. Originally staged by Gian Carlo Menotti, who I believe was a populist at heart, it has been revised by Gina Lapinski and  is three-dimensionally handsome in sets and costumes of the French Rococo merged with ‘Empire Style’. There is a horse drawn carriage in Act I and a twee lapdog for Manon in Act II. These and other cloying moments mean  that the  campery of Carry On Don’t Lose Your Head with Citizen Camembert's attempt to catch 'The Black Fingernail' is never far away. The staging of Act III is particularly monumental with the convicted women being led off to the ship bound for America. Strangely however,   after striving for so much sentimental realism in the designs by Desmond Heeley,  the abstract nature of the 'desert' near New Orleans in Act IV is a disappointment : Manon and des Grieux seem  to have wandered into an abstract representation of the Australian outback. It was a fault of the relay's close-ups to show that although Manon had no new clothes from Acts II to IV - only more distressed versions of a ball-gown as time went on -  her finger nails were immaculately manicured and there was not smudge of dirt on her face. So much for realism!

The musical standards from soloists, chorus and orchestra were compelling and far and beyond anything encountered at Covent Garden in recent seasons. James Levine can never be considered  ever to whip up a storm at the Met,  but he is a singers’ conductor and ever sensitive to their needs. Based on the evidence of the broadcast, he never drowns them. There is tension, incandescence and grandeur in the production and Puccini’s tear-jerking melodies soar without  ever descending into bathos. The Intermezzo  introducing Act III was exquisitely played. The Met chorus was more animated in this single production than people will ever see in a season by their well-schooled opposite numbers at Covent Garden -  and the proper use of a prompt box appears to negate the need to look constantly for the TV screens in the wings as at London’s opera houses. It was significant how dramatic all the singers could be without having to reveal the mechanics of the performance process. In fact,  with Brian Large’s mobile broadcast direction involving all manner of zooms, unusual angles and close-ups,  there was a Hollywood feel to the presentation that was a million miles away from Glyndebourne’s static and deadly boring recent Tristan and Isolde DVD recently shown in cinemas. Being so filmic, the production drew one into this story as old as time – and its old-fashioned story telling – so that over three hours flashed by.

To fill up the time during the intervals as soon as the Acts were over (and before they began again. ) Renée was there with a microphone ready to press it into the face,  of anyone coming into her range apparently.  The most hilarious interview was with Nancy and Paul Novograd the owner’s of ‘All Tame Animals’ who had three of their ‘creatures of theatre’ in this opera. Their descriptions of their animals ‘learning’ their music had to be heard to be disbelieved. No less amusing was Ms Fleming's  talk after Act I, with Karita Mattila who was portraying the heroine. She was still coming down from the adrenalin rush of performing as she described how Manon Lescaut is ‘a long part, challenging but lovely’ and the singer needs ‘stamina and the stronger and healthier you are the better you will sing’. She described how Manon  is melancholic in Act I as she ‘doesn’t have much family, how in Act II ‘everything is about pleasing herself and it becomes an obsession because she knows it is not going to last’ and in Acts III and IV ‘it is all going towards its tragic end’. Then,  when asked about warming up for her Act II splits in the dressing room, Ms  Mattila went into full (manic) callisthenics mode,  bending, stretching and doing the splits for the camera. (Why?)  Karita Mattila was also keen to mention that she is 47 and 'Manon Lescaut - she’s a young woman'. Later before the start of Act IV,  when all the gymnastics are repeated yet  again we suddenly hear ‘Oh they’re filming!’ as Ms Mattila sees the cameras. She is obviously a great artist but revealed herself here  as distinctly ‘kooky’ to say the least.

The age issue meant that while Ms Mattila played the tragic victim very well indeed, she did not really convince as either  the gawky innocent or as someone taking an older lover for an expensive ride: she was all too arch and  self-aware. Her voice had a steely centre, and her laser-edged top notes included a high C when doing (or because of doing?) those Act II splits. There was little Italianate warmth and she had some difficulty singing her final moments while lying on on her back and sides which clearly tested her vocal support so that there was more vibrato than seemingly necessary. Even so,  she is undoubtedly a committed and consummate artist.

Marcello Giordani partnered her as des Grieux:  his voice and demeanour seem from another age, part Gedda and part a younger Domingo and he said that he is coming to new spinto roles by employing ‘bel canto breath control and phrasing’. He seemed totally at ease with whatever he was singing whether in moments revealing his character’s innermost thoughts or at the intense peaks of high drama and passion. The rest of the principals were all solid singing-actors:  Sean Panikkar began it all with an engagingly lyrical account of the student Edmondo, Paul Plishka brought all his experience to the small part of the Innkeeper, Dwayne Croft, was Manon’s suitably conniving brother Lescaut and Dale Travis was a po-faced Geronte who mostly eschewed buffo character tendencies apart from a some shock-horror hamminess at the end of Act I.

I wanted to give an impression of the whole experience in this account because this was far from a night at ‘real’ opera and while it was much more than that it would not have been to everyone’s taste. Certainly the cloyingly ‘American’ ( in the worst sense of the word) introduction and interviews by Renée Fleming which peppered the transmission would have annoyed many. The  sound - but for Act I only after which it improved - was initially like a remastered CD of original 78s with an orchestral accompaniment cranked up to film score volumes, and might well have had many heading for the exit at the first interval. For some who believe opera and classical music to be a spiritual experience too,  the many backstage views of sweaty artists, flunkies, stage-crew, creaking sets, dust and dirt could also  have been off-putting. Personally I found it engrossing and fascinating, so much so that I cannot wait to see another one because with all this taken into account opera in London is no longer like this. This was opera, albeit very old-fashioned, at its grand-opera grandest.  I can't wait for more Met Live!

Jim Pritchard


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