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AVA's 'Manon'
Steve Cohen
The AVA's pleasant surprise
STEVE COHEN
Massenet’s Manon is a tough assignment for a music school. Heck, it’s not easy for professional opera companies, either. The Opera Company of Philadelphia produced it only once, in 1978. The Met didn’t do it for 23 years until 1987, then revived it in 2001 and 2005 as a vehicle for Renee Fleming.
The problem is the opera’s length— five acts, with a running time of nearly four hours— and its stilted plot. Massenet’s music is demanding, requiring an elegant, disciplined approach rather than long-held or loud-volume high notes.
Massenet wrote Manon in 1884, only nine years before Puccini tackled the same subject. Yet Puccini’s drama sounds so much more modern. Massenet filled his opera with powdered wigs and minuets while Puccini packed his with desperate passion. Puccini and his librettists chucked characters and secondary plot threads and focused on the love between Manon and the Chevalier des Grieux.
Suffering in comparison
Massenet’s Manon suffers as well in comparison with Verdi’s La Traviata (1853), which was written 31 years before Manon but connects more directly with the audience. Yes, the two operas are based on different novels, but the heroines are almost the same person: impetuous, hedonistic and afflicted with a respiratory disease. The male lead characters are similar as well: young innocent sons of moralistic, controlling fathers.
Both Carmen (1875) and Manon (1884) had their premieres at the Opera-Comique in Paris, a few blocks away but a world apart from the Palais Garnier, a more formal and traditional opera house. But Manon lacks the earthy realism that made Carmen popular. Instead, its conventions keep us at arm’s length, and we feel little identification with its people.
All of these obstacles make Manon a challenge and the Academy of Vocal Arts production a pleasant surprise. A well-balanced cast communicates the essence of the piece with an authentically Gallic sound.
Flirtatious, like Paris Hilton
Manon Strauss Evrard has the right style for her portrayal of her namesake, the precocious flirt whom you might describe as the Paris Hilton of Paris. She even looks a bit like Paris Hilton– slender, with a longish thin face. Evrard does not sing perfectly. She sometimes attacks under a note and belatedly slides into the right pitch. But she has bright high notes all the way up to E’s above high C. Her Gallic sound isn’t surprising, because she’s a native of France who is in her third year at AVA.
Stephen Costello gives the most accomplished performance of his four years at AVA as the tenor lead, des Grieux. His voice is caressing when soft and thrilling when loud, such as in his climactic "Ah, fuyez, fuyez!" in the Saint-Sulpice scene. He sings this role with a mixed tone that contains more head voice than chest and a gentle distinctive resonance. Costello and his colleagues achieve this authentic French sound more convincingly than we normally hear in major international houses. Music Director Christofer Macatsoris and the vocal coaches at AVA deserve credit for teaching this, and for instilling a refined and disciplined technique.
Weak character, strongly performed
Eric Dubin is a strong Lescaut, Manon’s cousin, who is supposed to watch over her when the 15-year-old girl arrives in Paris on her way to a convent. Lescaut does a lousy job, introducing her to sugar daddies, but Dubin does a fine job as singer and actor.
Elspeth Kincaid, Octavio Moreno, José Adán Pérez and Jeremy Paul Milner are leading singers who inhabit supporting roles in this production. The orchestra is a co-star: It conveys Massenet’s sensuous instrumental colors beautifully under Macatsoris’s direction. The orchestral prelude is omitted and so are several crowd scenes, mainly to keep the evening at a manageable length.
The good work on stage and in the pit changed my negative feelings about this opera and convinced me that there’s an advantage in hearing this interpretation of the story. We see more of the machinations of the men who pursue Manon, and we are moved by the confrontation at Saint-Sulpice, which is omitted in the Puccini version. The elegant surroundings are appropriate for a drama set in the reign of Louis XV and published as a novel in 1731. So now it will be hard to return to the more simplistic, extroverted and modern Puccini opera.
STEVE COHEN
Massenet’s Manon is a tough assignment for a music school. Heck, it’s not easy for professional opera companies, either. The Opera Company of Philadelphia produced it only once, in 1978. The Met didn’t do it for 23 years until 1987, then revived it in 2001 and 2005 as a vehicle for Renee Fleming.
The problem is the opera’s length— five acts, with a running time of nearly four hours— and its stilted plot. Massenet’s music is demanding, requiring an elegant, disciplined approach rather than long-held or loud-volume high notes.
Massenet wrote Manon in 1884, only nine years before Puccini tackled the same subject. Yet Puccini’s drama sounds so much more modern. Massenet filled his opera with powdered wigs and minuets while Puccini packed his with desperate passion. Puccini and his librettists chucked characters and secondary plot threads and focused on the love between Manon and the Chevalier des Grieux.
Suffering in comparison
Massenet’s Manon suffers as well in comparison with Verdi’s La Traviata (1853), which was written 31 years before Manon but connects more directly with the audience. Yes, the two operas are based on different novels, but the heroines are almost the same person: impetuous, hedonistic and afflicted with a respiratory disease. The male lead characters are similar as well: young innocent sons of moralistic, controlling fathers.
Both Carmen (1875) and Manon (1884) had their premieres at the Opera-Comique in Paris, a few blocks away but a world apart from the Palais Garnier, a more formal and traditional opera house. But Manon lacks the earthy realism that made Carmen popular. Instead, its conventions keep us at arm’s length, and we feel little identification with its people.
All of these obstacles make Manon a challenge and the Academy of Vocal Arts production a pleasant surprise. A well-balanced cast communicates the essence of the piece with an authentically Gallic sound.
Flirtatious, like Paris Hilton
Manon Strauss Evrard has the right style for her portrayal of her namesake, the precocious flirt whom you might describe as the Paris Hilton of Paris. She even looks a bit like Paris Hilton– slender, with a longish thin face. Evrard does not sing perfectly. She sometimes attacks under a note and belatedly slides into the right pitch. But she has bright high notes all the way up to E’s above high C. Her Gallic sound isn’t surprising, because she’s a native of France who is in her third year at AVA.
Stephen Costello gives the most accomplished performance of his four years at AVA as the tenor lead, des Grieux. His voice is caressing when soft and thrilling when loud, such as in his climactic "Ah, fuyez, fuyez!" in the Saint-Sulpice scene. He sings this role with a mixed tone that contains more head voice than chest and a gentle distinctive resonance. Costello and his colleagues achieve this authentic French sound more convincingly than we normally hear in major international houses. Music Director Christofer Macatsoris and the vocal coaches at AVA deserve credit for teaching this, and for instilling a refined and disciplined technique.
Weak character, strongly performed
Eric Dubin is a strong Lescaut, Manon’s cousin, who is supposed to watch over her when the 15-year-old girl arrives in Paris on her way to a convent. Lescaut does a lousy job, introducing her to sugar daddies, but Dubin does a fine job as singer and actor.
Elspeth Kincaid, Octavio Moreno, José Adán Pérez and Jeremy Paul Milner are leading singers who inhabit supporting roles in this production. The orchestra is a co-star: It conveys Massenet’s sensuous instrumental colors beautifully under Macatsoris’s direction. The orchestral prelude is omitted and so are several crowd scenes, mainly to keep the evening at a manageable length.
The good work on stage and in the pit changed my negative feelings about this opera and convinced me that there’s an advantage in hearing this interpretation of the story. We see more of the machinations of the men who pursue Manon, and we are moved by the confrontation at Saint-Sulpice, which is omitted in the Puccini version. The elegant surroundings are appropriate for a drama set in the reign of Louis XV and published as a novel in 1731. So now it will be hard to return to the more simplistic, extroverted and modern Puccini opera.
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