What’s next on Marcello’s calendar

Manon Lescaut was Puccini’s third opera and his first great success. The story is based on the 1731 novel L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost. The first performance of Manon Lescaut took place in the Teatro Regio in Turin 1893, and the opera was first performed at the Metropolitan Opera in 1907 in the presence of the composer, with soprano Lina Cavalieri in the title role and Enrico Caruso as des Grieux. The current cast at the Wiener Staatsoper is no less brilliant. Of Marcello Giordani at the Metropolitan Opera in 2008 the critic of the Financial Time wrote “Marcello Giordani [was] a golden-age Des Grieux, handsome and urgent in demeanour, suave in passages of introspection, glorious in outbursts of passion.” Of Netrebko’s debut as Manon at the Teatro dell’Opera of Rome, Opera News declared: “Netrebko sang and acted with an ease and sincerity that could not but conquer the audience”. It’s interesting to note that many critics have found echos of Tristan throughout Manon Lescaut, and that Puccini’s music in Manon Lescaut owes a debt to Tristan.