Comic opera in five acts (1884)
New Production! When, in 1731, Abbé Prévost wrote L’Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut, Jules Massenet’s inspiration, he portrayed an entire era, that of the Regency, which saw the old order fade away and a new one, full of the promise of unprecedented freedom, rise. Manon (the brilliant Pretty Yende) must make her way between these two worlds, fleeing the convent in order to embrace the paths of desire and transgression, throwing herself headlong into a burning and destructive passion with Des Grieux (Benjamin Bernheim).
Set in the interwar period of the 20th Century, director Vincent Huguet’s new production casts the work’s customary taffeta aside in order to bring out its violence to the full.