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Manon Lescaut

Feb. 23, 2025, 8 p.m.

Opernhaus Zürich
Falkenstrasse 1
8008 Zürich

Manon Lescaut's life ends in a vast, barren American landscape. She dies exhausted, in the arms of her lover Des Grieux, far from the social world she fascinated with her beauty. With this final act of Manon Lescaut, Giacomo Puccini created an unconventional ending that is entirely devoted to the two main characters, underscoring symbolically the impossibility of their love. In the same month that Giuseppe Verdi staged his last opera in Milan, Puccini introduced himself as his most important successor with Manon Lescaut in Turin in 1893. The work was a ground-breaking success: with the story of the decay of a fragile, beautiful woman, which he took from the French novelist Abbé Prévost and adapted for his own needs with the help of a total of six librettists, Puccini found his voice not only thematically but also stylistically. The first encounter between Manon, who is officially destined for a convent, and the student Des Grieux takes place in Amiens, France. But the two are never seen as a happy couple in Puccini’s version. Their fate together, which takes them to Paris, Le Havre, and across the ocean to America, is elusive from the outset. The circle around the rich Geronte, who temporarily enables Manon to live a life of luxury in Paris, provides a great contrast: Puccini illustrates the scene in his Parisian salon with a superimposed, Rococo style, which he contrasts with a sound clearly inspired by Wagner for the desperate passion between Manon and Des Grieux. Puccini succeeded in creating multi-layered character portraits marked by great depth of emotion, not only in the title character but also in the tenor role. Soprano Elena Stikhina, who was most recently celebrated as Salome at the Opernhaus Zürich, can be heard as Manon. Tenor Saimir Pirgu returns as Des Grieux. Following La fanciulla del West, Barrie Kosky and Marco Armiliato will once again collaborate on a work by Puccini.

https://www.opernhaus.ch/en/spielplan/calendar/manon-lescaut/2024-2025/

Kulturstelle contact: Ana Kitanovic email

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