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West Bay Opera Performance Reviews
Puccini’s Manon Lescaut makes one sit in awe at the music
Review published in the Tri-Valley Herald, February 21, 2006
By Keith Kreitman
Where has the exquisite opera Manon Lescaut by Giacomo Puccini been all of my life?
This early work by Puccini, the first that brought him fame and fortune, is so rarely performed today that I had never had a chance to see it.
Now, the West Bay Opera company has brought it to life in a dazzling production. It has an epic quality worthy of Richard Wagner.
Oddly, without any arias that light up the concert stage as solos, as in Puccini’s most famous opera, Madame Butterfly, the score is so captivating that one must sit in awe at his musical inspiration.
The plot, taken from a novel by the Abbe Prevost, had already hit the stage as the opera Manon by Jules Massenet nine years before Puccini premiered his version in 1893. The Massenet version is still in the active repertoire of just about every major opera company, while for the most part Puccini’s has lingered on the shelves, perhaps because of the exceedingly difficult singing roles for the two lovers.
The fact that the Puccini version has not been widely seen opened the door for stage director David F. Ostwald to create a fresh version, with breathtaking sets designed by Peter Crompton and stunning costumes designed by Callie Floor.
The leads, sung at the Sunday afternoon performance by Paula Goodman Wilder as Manon Lescaut and by Gabriel Reoyo-Pazos as her lover Chevalier des Grieux, were spine-tingling in their perfection. Rarely does one hear such a rich and unforced tenor voice and the beauty of Wilder's upper register could bring tears to anyone's eyes.
It is a story in which
none of the major characters are models of virtue. None are really heroes.
Each has a strain of selfishness and self-centered motivation that makes
the tragic ending inevitable.
Des Grieux, from a fine family, is a penniless student when he spots
Manon as she alights from a carriage in Amiens, France, and he falls
instantly in love.
An 18-year-old troublesome child, consigned by her father to a convent, she is being protected on her voyage by her brother Lascaut (baritone Igor Vieira), a gambling, greedy and ambitious sergeant in the King’s army.
She is also spotted by an older and lusty tax collector for the King, Geronte di Ravoir (bass/baritone John Burton), who has designs of his own on her and schemes to seduce her. But, before his plan works, des Grieux persuades Manon to escape to Paris with him. After this, her brother cuts a deal with the frustrated aristocrat for when Manon returns.
Later, she becomes mistress to Geronte in his Paris mansion and becomes addicted to the luxurious life of wealth but suffers psychologically as she pits her greed against a life with her less affluent lover. But, Geronte, discovering their renewed meeting, resolves the issue by having her exiled to the French colonies in America as a prostitute.
Des Grieux finds a way to accompany her on the ship, and the opera reaches its climax in the French colonies of America.
Supporting roles were sung by Brian Thorsett, John Burton, Eric Wenburg, Amy Bouchard, Greg Andersen, Piet Van Allen and John Dalton Fredrick.
The pit orchestra under music director Matthias Kutzsch handled the difficult score flawlessly.
West Bay Opera gives us a truly beautiful production in staging, voices and score.
