Today we got to see Manon Lescaut live from the Metropolitan Opera at a nearby movie theater. I didn't really have high expectations. The first two acts mostly lived up to my expectations and seemed to be heavy in the fluff department. I couldn't really understand why the characters reacted to the others the way they did except to get the story to the interesting point. That was when Manon is denounced by her sugar daddy. Up to then the story and the music were rather dull. Then things got interesting both dramatically and musically.
I enjoyed the end of Act 2 through the end of the opera. Jerry thought that Manon's dying scene went on too long and was overly dramatic. I told him that this was an early opera by Puccini and he hadn't learned to be subtle in working on our emotions. (I certainly got choked up when Des Grieux pleaded to be allowed to go into exile with Manon and again when Manon was dying.)
They replay it (at least in bigger cities) on Sunday. You might want to see it then if you missed it today.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
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1 comments:
ChelBert and I went to "Manon Lescaut" on Saturday at the Lensic in Santa Fe. I liked the renunciation by the sugar daddy, too, and I thought the staging of the third act was very cool.
We've also seen "Hansel and Gretel" and "Macbeth." We have tickets to "Peter Grimes," "Tristan and Isolde," and "La Fille du Régiment." We saw the this season's production of "La Bohème" at the Met a couple years ago.
We like the Met in HD. The price is right, and we can satisfy our opera jones until the Santa Fe season starts.
--PegBert
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