The premiere of the opera 'Manon Lescaut' on February 20. Conductor Martins Ozolins, stage director Ināra Slucka, set designer Mārtiņš Vilkārsis, costume designer Keita and dramature Mikus Čeže. In the title role Asmik Grigorian, Yulianna Bawarska and Natalia Kreslina, Chevalier des Grieux - Murat Karahan and Sergey Polyakov, Lescaut - Jānis Apeinis and Rihards Mačanovskis.

In their time, his friends had tried to dissuade Giacomo Puccini from idea to write an opera about the tragedy of wayward beauty Manon Lescaut as the story of Abbé Prévost had have already inspired an opera by composer Julles Massenet. However, Puccini dismissed all objections.Manon is a heroine I believe in and therefore she cannot fail to win the hearts of the public. Why shouldn’t there be two operas about Manon? A woman like Manon can have more than one lover. He added, Massenet feels it as a Frenchman, with powder and minuets. I shall feel it as an Italian, with a desperate passion.Manon Lescaut was his third opera and his first striking success. 

Manon Lescaut is about the clash of two equally powerful, yet opposing forces: the material world versus that of the immaterial. The opera’s heroes are given the gift of choice, but once they’ve made their decisions, there’s no going back. Manon’s destiny is marked by the meeting of two worlds at a crossroads, along with the inability to choose between love and stability – which leads to catastrophic results for Manon herself, as well as her lover, des Grieux. There’s no need to strictly define the time and place where one might come across individuals such as Manon; people like this titular heroine will be born into this world, live, die, and be born again and again, in every society. The content doesn’t change upon placing the story in a contemporary setting, but there are a few new details. In turn, the changing of the times continues along the road started by opera librettists, and even Giacomo Puccini himself: the events that took place in the first half of the 18^th century in Antoine François Prévost’s novel have been carried over to the second half of the same century, fine-tuning it to a score which incorporates influences from 19^th century French lyric opera and Italian verismo.

 

 

 

Further performances in Latvian National Opera on February 21 and 22, March 18 and April 17.
Tickets: here.