We have the first of three different Manons on this week’s Sunday Opera (7/27 3:00 p.m.) with Daniel Auber’s 1884 treatment of Abbe Prevost’s 1731 novel, “Manon Lescaut.” Auber’s work of the three we’ll be airing (the others by Massenet and Puccini) is probably the loosest adaptation of Prevost, but it still ends tragically for its titular character.
Manon (Rocio Perez) has just left the convent where she had been for most of her life. She immediately sees and falls in love with a poor student named des Grieux Sebastien Gueze), but the Marquis d'Herigny's (Armando Noguera) pursues her to make her one of his conquests. Manon is basically forced into the arms of d’Herigny when des Grieux wins a great deal of money which he is cheated out of by Lescaut (Francesco Salvadori), here he’s Manon’s cousin, not brother.
Lescaut eventually enlists in the army to avoid being arrested but strikes an officer as he’s trying to escape. Manon becomes d’Herigny’s mistress to secure his release, but des Grieux appears, there is a quarrel, and d’Henrigny is wounded.
Both des Grieux and Manon are arrested, and Manon is deported to Louisiana. des Grieux follows her, and with the help of friends from their Paris days, they escape, only for Manon to die in his arms in the desert.
They’re joined by Manuela Custer, Guillaume Andrieux, Lamia Beuque, and Paolo Battaglia along with the Teatro Regio Chorus and Orchestra conducted by Guillaume Tourniaire.
Stay tuned after “Manon Lescaut” for another Auber opera, the 36th of his 51 pieces entitled “La Sirene.” In this short, three-act work, the siren is not associated with water. Instead, she is a young mountain girl whose voice enthralls everyone who hears her which enables her to help her bandit brother and her lover escape from the arms of the military. It’s a bit of fun that’s filled with Auber’s lovely music and is probably not an opera with which you’ll be familiar.
