An Italian opera in four acts
Libretto Luigi Illica, Marco Praga, Giuseppe Giacosa, Domenico Oliva, Giulio Ricordi, Giacomo Puccini
First performance of the opera February 1, 1893, Teatro Regio, Turin
Although the undisputed icon of Italian opera of the 19th century was Giuseppe Verdi, who also went down in history as an important factor in the awakening of the Italian national consciousness, the burden of his "crown" soon fell on the forty-five years younger Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924), who after his first opera attempts, the world beyond Italy's borders increasingly recognized him as Verdi's symbolic successor, such as Manon Lescaut among the first after the London premierein 1894, for example, the British playwright George Bernard Shaw also found out. Puccini's operatic profile, in contrast to Verdi's, is much less inclined to the treatment of historical themes, and therefore a significant similarity between the two opera giants can be seen in the deeply sympathetic treatment of human destinies, interpersonal relationships and, above all, in the unsurpassed sense of musical drama that drives them human passions.
The core of Puccini's musical theater creativity is - regardless of the wider social or cultural context of the individual opera - love, which can make us happy, fulfill as well as destroy and destroy in equal measure. The ambivalent living aspects of this emotion have been covered in Puccini's opera writing since his operatic debut , Le Villi ( Villas ), and as a leading motif, dressed in always different musical constellations, is repeated all the way to his last opera, Turandot . When Puccini embarked on his third opera "project", Manon Lescaut , he was marked by the negative experience of the failed opera Edgar, which, according to the composer, experienced a negative reaction mainly because of a bad libretto. The bitter traveler did not deter Puccini from creating an opera, but encouraged him to take a more active role in co-creating the libretto. The music publisher Giulio Ricordi also played an important role in the development of Puccini's undeniable talent, who, with the aim of providing a suitable libretto for the new opera, engaged as many as five writers - Ruggiero Leoncavallo, who was soon fired, Domenico Olivo and Marco Prago, who were also soon canceled the collaboration, and Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica, who are actually the most responsible for the opera standing the test of time and coming to life on stage in its dramatic fullness.
The protagonist of Puccini's opera novelty Manon Lescaut , who was the composer's first major triumph after the premiere at Turin's Royal Theater on February 1, 1893, was thus one of the composer's first femme fatales. The plot of the story is based on the content of Abbé Prévost's novel L'histoire du Chévalier Des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut ( The Story of the Knight Des Grieux and Manon Lescaut) from 1731. Prévost's novel acquired cult status, which was further strengthened by numerous social changes after the industrial revolution and failed social utopias. The novel still seems to be an important read today, as it touched on many questions of human ethics and, above all, tragedy, which is to be found in the weakness of human character and the absence of "Apollinian" values, embodied by Manon Lescaut as an exploitative courtesan and the emotionally labile nobleman Des Grieux. The merry-go-round of love adventures, greed and criminal acts takes the two opera protagonists into exile across the pond, to the then French protectorate of Louisiana, from where they escape and seek refuge in a British settlement, but perish miserably in the desert from thirst and exhaustion. Puccini's creative energy in creating the musical drama was directly fed by the shocking and psychologically tense story. It seems as if Puccini's expressive arsenal first explodes only in the conflict and tension-filled second act of the opera, which is why some connoisseurs of the operaManon Lescaut is characterized as Puccini's first real discovery of the tragic muse, which could be defined as the despair that arises during the search for love. In addition to the rich and idiomatically recognizable melody, the composer mastered the compositional technique of musical characterization (or iconization) with leading motifs, partly inspired by Wagner), thereby paving the way for his own operatic poetics.
