It is one of the great scenes in all opera. In Massenet’s opera, this scene depicts both the joy of young love and, at its conclusion, the pathos of the abrupt separation of the young lovers when Des Grieux is abducted by henchmen sent by his disapproving father. Massenet set his Act II in the impoverished love-nest in Paris where Manon has fled with her young lover the Chevalier des Grieux after their love-at-first-sight meeting in the coach station at Amiens. Interestingly, this is the only reference in Puccini’s Manon Lescaut to a scene that is unforgettable in Massenet’s Manon, which premiered nine years earlier than Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, also based on the popular 1731 French novel Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost. Not that Manon doesn’t like luxury! But she also confides to her brother that she longs for the humble dwelling where she and Des Grieux knew true love. At the first performance this year of this San Francisco Opera production of Manon Lescaut, Liana Haroutounian not only sang this aria beautifully, she even conveyed the chilling effect experienced by Manon amidst all this luxury. Manon’s Act II aria “In quelle trine morbide”/“In these soft laces” is considered by many one of the finest arias Puccini ever wrote. If Manon Lescaut has never achieved the audience adulation accorded Puccini’s La Bohème, Tosca, or Madama Butterfly, it nevertheless contains some excellent music. On Friday, November 8, Liana Haroutounian sang in the first of six performances of Manon Lescaut, the opera that gave Puccini his first success when it premiered in 1893. Haroutounian also sang here the role of Nedda in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci in 2018. Having quickly emerged as perhaps this era’s leading Puccini soprano, Lianna Haroutounian returns to San Francisco Opera by adding the role of Manon Lescaut to the list of Puccini heroines she has sung here, starting with Tosca in 2014 and Madama Butterfly in 2016.

Manon lescaut sf opera