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Manon au cinéma Torino
Teatro Regio
09/26/2024 - & October 1, 3, 6, 12, 18, 23*, 26, 2024
Giacomo Puccini : Manon Lescaut
Erika Grimaldi*/Maria Teresa Leva (Manon Lescaut), Roberto Aronica/Carlo Ventre* (Chevalier Renato Des Grieux), Alessandro Luongo (Lescaut), Carlo Lepore (Geronte di Ravoir), Giuseppe Infantino*/Didier Pieri (Edmondo), Reuters Ventorero (Un musico), Janusz Nosek (Sergente degli arcieri, L’osteria), Lorenzo Battagion (Il comandante di marina)
Coro del Teatro Regio, Ulisse Trabacchin (Chorus Master), Orchestra del Teatro Regio, Renato Palumbo (Conductor)
Arnaud Bernard (Stage Director), Marina Bianchi (Sets), Alessandro Camera (Costumes), Fiammetta Baldiserri (Lighting), Carlo Ricotti (Choreography), Marcello Alongi (Videography)
(© Simone Borrasi)
The Teatro Regio opened its 2024-2025 with an extravaganza: three operas about Manon Lescaut, the heroine of Abbé Prévost’s novel, Histoire du Chevalier Des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut (1731). Puccini’s Manon Lescaut (1893) and Massenet’s Manon (1884) are major staples of the repertoire. The rarity is Auber’s Manon Lescaut (1856), an opera that is infrequently performed in France and has been scarce in Italy for over a century.
The most interesting aspect of this project is that the three operas are directed by the same director, Frenchman Arnaud Bernard, whose Adelaide di Borgogna at the 2023 edition of the Rossini Opera Festival (ROF) in Pesaro was far from convincing. Fortunately, his staging of Puccini’s version of the story of Manon is much more appealing.
The cast for this production was well chosen, especially the fabulous Erika Grimaldi, recently admired as Tosca in Parma. Grimaldi’s voice was on the small side for Tosca, but it was perfect for Puccini’s Manon. Both an intelligent musician and an exceptional actress, she brought the different facets of Manon’s character to life. She is a flawed character, but one cannot help but cheer for her. She’s naïve, initially gauche, coquettish, spoiled and capricious, greedy, at times cruel and most of all helpless. When Grimaldi makes her entrance in the bistro in Act I, she is absolutely French. Her elegance and deportment were captivating. She is a coquette, a concept alien to many (especially in North America) and often confused with whorish, when it is anything but that. Manon is simply charming and playful. She’s spontaneously attracted to Des Grieux, but loves comfort and luxury, and hence chooses to be kept by old Geronte. She’s foolish and makes love with Des Grieux in Geronte’s mansion. She’s cruel to her benefactor when caught in flagrante, noting his age and unattractiveness. A more calculating woman would not be so blunt. She’s foolish and greedy, determined to grab as much as she can before she is to run away. In the grand tradition of Puccini specialist, soprano Raina Kabaivanska, Grimaldi conveys the minutiae of Manon’s complex character with the right inflection in phrases like “Vedete? Io son fedele alla parola mia” (end of Act I), “Tu, amore? Tu? Sei tu?... Tu non m’ami?” and “Amore? Amore! Mio buon signore, ecco! Guardatevi!” (Act II), “Tu... Amore? E nell’estrema onta non m’abbandoni” (Act III) and “Sei tu? Sei tu che piangi?” (Act IV). Like the great Kabaivanska, she has an amazing legato, flawless breath control and impeccable phrasing. I look forward to hearing more of her.
Carlo Ventre is a dramatic tenor and a veteran on major stages for the two past decades. Naturally, his voice is less fresh than it used to be, but it’s still a force of nature. Like many expansive voices, his opening notes were tentative, but once warmed up, he was incandescent; a passionate and impetuous Des Grieux. His distinct, heroic voice had squillo, and his high notes were well‑supported and ringing.
Baritone Alessandro Luongo was a dashing Lescaut. He managed to convey the character’s many flaws while seeming sympathetic. Vocally, this is not a demanding role, and Luongo’s voice was more than adequate. Bass Carlo Lepore is a veteran in the role of Geronte, the old letch who was Manon’s benefactor and was implicated in her tragic end. The choice of the name Geronte is intentional; it implies he’s significantly older (the root γέρων or geron is “old” in Greek). From his first appearance in Act I, he conveyed authority, self‑confidence, arrogance, and above all, distastefulness. It’s hard to imagine a better Geronte di Ravoir.
For a backdrop, Bernard chose French cinema of the 1930s, golden age of French filmmaking. The action is transposed specifically to 1937, and Marina Bianchi’s sets for the first act were exceptionally effective as well as cinematic: a bustling bistro at Amiens’s train station; travelers, railwaymen and townsfolk in for a drink or a meal. The movement of the many extras on stage was also conceived to be decidedly cinematic.
Act II opened with a private projection of Marcel Carné’s Les Enfants du paradis (1945) in Manon’s private rooms at Geronte di Ravoir’s mansion. Manon is riveted by the famous pickpocket scene, which insinuates Manon and her sibling’s lifestyle, living off old Geronte and eventually trying to run away with his valuables. The charming dance lesson scene, where Geronte shows off his protégée is again quite cinematic. Manon’s dance partner is dressed in a Pierrot outfit identical to the mime in Carné’s pickpocket scene.
The madrigal composed by Geronte for Manon, “Sulla vetta tua del monte” is sung by a mezzo (intended as a travesti young man in the original libretto). Bernard adapts this to the 1930s by making the singer and his companions androgynous Weimar‑era cabaret singers, à la Marlene Dietrich.
When Des Grieux finally finds Manon, they are wild with passion. While they kiss and make love, scenes are projected from French films of the period showing a young couple kissing. Large segments of Henri‑Georges Clouzot’s Manon (1949) are shown, notably the scene when a twentieth century Des Grieux finds her in a brothel. The parallel is obvious.
To make the arrest scene convincing in the twenty-first century, an intelligent aggiornamento is concocted by Bernard. Manon’s louche brother enters, armed with a gun, to announce that Geronte has called the police after having caught Manon and Des Grieux in flagrante in his home. In the confusion, Manon grabs her brother’s gun and shoots Geronte to justify the harsh penalty of deportation, an impossible punishment for the charge of prostitution or even robbery in 1930s France. Again, the entrance of the police, the brawl, the confusion and the ensuing shooting of Geronte were done in a brilliant cinematic manner.
Act III, taking place at Le Havre, is the opera’s most dramatic and moving segment. It too is staged cinematically, with the immigrants to America centrestage and the imprisoned women to the left in a holding cell. Though Louisiana had long ceased to be French, it’s possible the ship was heading to French Guyana, known for its penal colony. The somber mood is aptly conveyed by focusing on the misery of the non‑criminal immigrants and delineating several subplots involving them. When Des Grieux convinces the ship’s captain to take him abroad, scenes of ocean crossings from old films are shown.
Act IV, the most tragic, is a funereal love duet that takes place in the American desert. It ought to have been a jungle, if the ship’s destination was French Guyana. Manon and Des Grieux remain in an enclosed space throughout, and the entire stage is filled with a projection of the final scene of Clouzot’s Manon, where the two wander the desert. Des Grieux carries and eventually drags Manon, until he realizes she’s dead. He then digs her a grave in an oasis, alas reached too late. The projected images were more powerful, especially in this act, than any sets I’ve ever seen. The only drawback is that we are obviously distracted from the onstage action, though thankfully not the singing. These are the strengths and the weaknesses of Bernard’s staging.
Ossama el Naggar
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