Giacomo Puccini

by Wakeling Dry

It was produced in 1893 at the Regio Theatre, Turin, on the 1st of February, conducted by Alexander Pomé, and cast as follows:

Manon	Ferrani.
The Dancing Master	Ceresoli.
Des Grieux	Cremonini.
Lescaut	Moro.
Geronte	Polonini.
Edmund	Rassini.

For a new work by a composer whose reputation at that time, much to the wonderment of native judges and musicians, had not traversed beyond Italy, its production in England was remarkably quick. It was given the next year, on May 14, 1894, at Covent Garden with the following cast, comprising a special company of Italian singers brought together by Messrs. Ricordi, of which the exceptionally fresh chorus appears to have been the chief point of excellence:

Manon	Olghina.
Des Grieux	Beduschi.
Lescaut	Pini-Corsi.
Geronte	Arimondi.

and A. Seppilli was the conductor. The occasion was interesting in more than one way. The season under Sir Augustus Harris began on the very unusual day—a Whit-Monday. The opera house had been renovated entirely and re-upholstered, with new seats and curtains, and glittered fresh in all the glories of paint and gilding. Tradition has it that this was the only time in forty years—since the building of the present house in fact—had a broom ever been known to go into every corner. Yet another point makes this opening of the season memorable. It began with this new opera of Puccini's, and then gave Verdi's Falstaff the same week.

Without making an "odious" comparison it is obvious that reference should be made to Massenet's work and the differences between that and Puccini's opera briefly touched upon.

In both versions certain departures are made, so far as the story goes, from the original tale. Let us first examine Massenet's book. This opens in the courtyard of an inn at Amiens to which Lescaut, a soldier who is evidently given to loose living, brings his pretty little sister Manon en route for the convent school to which she is destined. She meets with the handsome Chevalier des Grieux, and easily falls in love with him. The quiet life of schoolroom and convent does not make a very strong appeal to the high-spirited girl, and she very quickly decides to run away to Paris, and give her brother the slip. At first honourable intentions as to the pretty and confiding Manon's future seem to weigh with the lover, but in the second act we find them installed in the customary ménage à deux, Des Grieux's father having declined to give his consent to a marriage. Thus almost at the beginning Fate seems to be against Manon, and she accepts only too easily the situation and—drifts. Des Grieux's "sinews of war" being anything but opulent, it is easy to understand why the offers of the aristocrat De Bretigny are too tempting for Manon to refuse. To him she transfers her affections, and we next see her established at Cours-la-Reine, the fêted and admired mistress of Bretigny. But during the ball she hears that her former lover has renounced the world with its pomps and vanities and is preparing to take orders. With that instinct known as the truly feminine, Manon immediately makes up her mind that she wants Des Grieux back again; and after a strenuous scene at the seminary of S. Sulpice we find, in the third act, that Des Grieux has thrown his good resolutions to the winds and is again with his charmer. Manon by this time has become rather more than a fragile butterfly from whose wings the bloom has been brushed. She is now running a gambling den, with the help, apparently, of one of her numerous admirers. Des Grieux and this person come to loggerheads, and the latter informs the police of the nature of the gaming house, and Manon is ignominiously dragged off to the lock-up. The last scene shows us Manon being taken by road to Havre, from whence she is to be shipped, in company with other undesirables, to the New Continent. Des Grieux sees her, and begs the warder to allow him an interview. Worn out by remorse and weakened by her former life, Manon, now reduced to the last stage of infirmity, dies peacefully in her lover's arms.

Puccini's librettists follow a different plan, and the Manon of the Italian composer is a species of impressionistic scenes more or less loosely strung together, which, while they demand perhaps a knowledge of the story for their full appreciation—and to opera goers the story is, of course, quite familiar—exhibit that quality of conjuring up the atmosphere not so much of the actual place and characters, but of the spirit which underlies the pathetic tragedy. In short, Puccini's Manon—music and story, for it is impossible to separate them—exhibits that skilful picturing of the theme which is even more apparent in the subsequent work, La Bohème.

In Puccini's opera we find after the meeting of Manon and Des Grieux at the inn at Amiens that the gay young lady is installed as the mistress of Geronte, and rather less stress, perhaps, is laid on the part her rascally brother plays in the transaction. By giving the final scene in America, whither Des Grieux follows the ruined girl, Puccini's librettists follow the Abbe's original story rather more closely. Other actual differences will be noted by following the plan, as in the previous chapters, of giving a more or less detailed story of the opera, with plot and music side-by-side.