Our Opera Lovers Group met on Thursday 25 September 2025 for a performance of Manon Lescaut by Giacomo Puccini.
This was the famous Royal Opera House performance with Placido Domingo as des Grieux (a student), Forbes Robinson as Geronte di Ravoir (a tax collector), Kiri Te Kanawa as Manon Lescaut and Thomas Allen as Lescaut (her brother), recorded on 17 May 1983 (42 years ago).
The story revolves around the power that money can exert on the lives of young people, and how power can lead to control. Manon is a young French lady who is abducted by a wealthy tax collector for his own amusement and entertainment.
However Manon has fallen for a noble but poor student, Chevalier des Grieux who tries to prevent the abduction. Manon’s brother is in the employ of the tax collector and delays in acting to save his sister.
Manon decides to elope with des Grieux, taking the jewels she has been given by the tax collector. They will need them to get started in their new lives. The tax collector claims the jewels were only loaned, not given, and calls out the guard to arrest Manon. She stands trial and is found guilty, and is sentenced to transportation in French America near New Orleans. Des Grieux begs the captain of the transportation ship to take him along on the voyage as a cabin boy, and eventually the captain agrees.
The couple manage to escape from the Penal Colony outside New Orleans, but despite there being no deserts in Louisiana, Manon’s health gives out whilst they try to cross the desert on foot. Des Grieux is left alone after Manon dies of thirst and the final curtain falls. Many of Puccini’s operas do not end happily, and this is no exception.
Our next meeting is on Thursday 27 November 2025, and will feature another Puccini opera, The Girl of the Golden West.