Puccini’s Manon Lescaut: Will she do it for love? Watch tonight

Puccini’s adaptation of the novel by Abbé Prévost had a complicated gestation. An alarmingly long list of librettists attempted to satisfy the composer’s demands in terms of dramatic structure and fine verbal detail. Was Puccini struggling perhaps to make his opera sufficiently different from Massenet’s on the same subject?  Puccini probably never reached a ‘definitive’ form of this opera but it was his first international success and arguably the first in which the composer found his voice as a musical dramatist. Opera Poznań has entrusted their new production – streamed live by Slippedisc, courtesy of OperaVision on the opening night  – to a former winner of the European Opera Directing Prize, Gerard Jones, and conductor Marco Guidarini.

The Plot: destined for the convent, the young Manon falls head over heels in love with a handsome stranger and decides to flee with him. Yet aspiring to a life of wealth and luxury, she ends up throwing herself into the arms of a rich nobleman. Can she forget her true love?

Sung in Italian.  Subtitles in English and Polish

Live Saturday 8th June 1900 CET  /1800 London   / 1300 New York