Jules Massenet - MANON - ‘Regardez moi bien dans les yeux!’ (Earle Patriarco)

MANON
Opéra-comique en 5 actes et 6 tableaux
Composer: Jules Massenet (1842-1912)
Librettist: Henri Meilhac & Philippe Gille, after the Abbé Prévost’s ‘L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut’ (1731)
First performance : Opera-Comique, Paris, 19 January 1884
SETTING : Amiens, Paris & on the road to Le Havre, 1721
PLOT : Manon, whom her cousin Lescaut is taking to the convent, meets at a post relay in Amiens the young Chevalier des Grieux, who takes her instead to Paris. Act II: The coquette, told by M. de Brétigny that des Grieux will be kidnapped that evening on his father’s orders, agrees to go with de Brétigny, who will make her the queen of Paris. Act III: Manon has had enough, and longs for des Grieux, who will shortly enter the church. At the Séminaire de Saint-Sulpice, Manon wins over the lover she abandoned. Act IV is set at the hôtel de Transylvanie, where des Grieux, introduced by Lescaut, plays and wins. Guillot calls the police; the intervention of the comte des Grieux rescues his son from shame, but Manon will be deported to Louisiana. In Act IV, on the road to Le Havre, Manon dies in the arms of des Grieux.
‘Manon’ is Massenet’s most popular opera, and was, for many years, as celebrated as Gounod’s ‘Faust’ [ • Charles Gounod - FAUST... ] or Bizet’s ‘Carmen’. This was not the first opera to tackle des Grieux’s novel; Halévy composed a ballet in 1830 and Auber an opéra-comique in 1856, while Puccini would compose an opera in 1893. What makes Massenet’s ‘Manon’ so successful is the charming depiction of young love and the freshness and tunefulness of the music. Arthur Pougin thought it one of the most remarkable operas performed at the Opéra-Comique for a quarter century, while Thomas Beecham said ‘I would give the whole of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos for Massenet’s Manon, and would think I had vastly profited by the exchange’.
No. 2 - Conseils de Lescaut : ‘Regardez-moi bien dans les yeux’
Manon has arrived at an inn by coach to meet her cousin Lescaut, who will take her to a convent. He tells her to remain where she is and behave herself, because he is guardian to both her and the family honour - while he goes off to drink and play cards.
Lescaut, garde du corps, cousin de Manon / Manon’s cousin and bodyguard (baritone) : Earle Patriarco
Conductor: Antonio Pappano
Orchestra Symphonique de la Monnaie
Brussels 1999