Portraits de Manon

By Jules Massenet

White’s Hotel

Review: Tom Mooney

Unlike Tosca, this production of Portraits de Manon came without sur titles, which was unfortunate because the story does not unfold with the same clarity as Puccini’s.

Director Rob Kearley and his strong cast, including Stephen Anthony Brown and Eunhee Kim, in the absence of sur titles, do their best to disentangle the convoluted plot, the abridged version of which now follows: old and alone with his thoughts, the Chevalier des Grieux is obsessed with the spectral memory of his lost love, Manon.

But the ailing Des Grieux has little empathy for his nephew, Jean de Moncerf, who has the hots for Aurore, indefatigably pretty but without a penny to her name: Des Grieux only relents after he learns that Aurore is in fact the niece of Manon, and so abundance of beauty prevails over paucity of shekels

To put meat on the bones of what must have been a threadbare concept to begin with, a short scene from Act 2 of Manon was appended, ostensibly to revisit and explain the flawed relationship between the protagonists – Manon and Des Grieux – from the earlier opera.

This is a reminder of how much the relationship between Manon and Des Grieux suffered fatally from social mores: with Manon long dead, Des Grieux  has nothing but  memories of his lost love to occupy his dotage.

The Manon scene is rooted in Paris at the height of the belle epoque, and Le Portrait de Manon on the cusp of World War I, a conflagration which will claim millions of young French men like Jean, who, by pursuing Aurore, proves the apple doesn’t usually fall far from the tree.

The story of Manon has been centre stage at Wexford on two occasions, with the less than memorable version by Auber as recently as 2002: an opera comique, like Le Pre aux clercs, Portraits de Manon was illuminating, but not electrifying.