Foto curtesy of the Daily Herald Chicago (in turn Courtesy Robert Kusel/Lyric Opera of Chicago)
It is Sunday, 11 am and I couldn’t wait to get out of bed! Don’t make funny faces! I only went to bed at 5am..ahhhhhh, now you get it :-) Few of you will understand how unique this is for me ;-)
I am still buzzing from last night and a still largely speechless! I don’t know if this will be the case with any of the viewers who were sitting yesterday night in the beautiful Lyric Opera but I still hear that captivating singing as if it was a recording for ever replaying inside of me...and I hope it will keep on doing that for the whole day.
Before I get too carried away let me say a biiiig thank you to
WFMT and their sponsors for the live broadcast! It is the only chance some of us will get to listen to this particular production and I am immensely grateful for the opportunity, especially since the sound quality of the broadcast was amazing! Never once did it crackle, nor did the server die, nor was there any singing into each others microphones, nor did the orchestra cover the singers or vice versa. None of the typical flaws of such live vents were audible and we could sit back, relax and let the music flow…
Having seen the DVD of the BCN production of
Manon, I was anxious about the audio alone being able to convey the complexity of this particular concept of the opera. Having a general idea about what would be going on on stage certainly helped put things in context and also helped fade some of the stage noises into the background, so that they never disturbed the enjoyment of the music.
So was the audio enough? Did it tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth about Manon? I think it did! At least for me, least of sitting there in the first row, with the nose glued to the stage, it couldn’t have felt more real. I was drawn into it, transported over the ocean and not only into the theatre, but on stage among the characters, where I felt their story unfolding around me, within me. I giggled and danced with Manon, tenderly caressed “notre petite table”, swayed and felt the pull of life in love and life in comfort, got swept of my feet by le chevalier, smiled tenderly at his letters, suffered his torment in St Sulpice, immersed in his ardent passion and cried with both at the sadness of “l’histoire de Manon Lescaut”.
Undoubtedly, the magic of last night is due mainly to
Nathalie and
Jonas, who gave it all and when you thought your heart would burst with emotion, gave it some more! They engaged me with every breath, with every note and every step. You could hear the laughs in their voices, feel the tenderness and the caresses and your skin.
I loved the way Natalie portrayed the girlish joy of life and how she suffered under her own fickleness and constant desire for more. This Manon had depth, she didn’t mindlessly flow from one situation to another, but felt the pressure of her own desires, but is nevertheless a victim of these, she isn’t able to win the battle with herself, she is just too young and is just too eager to experience life at full. And this brightness and joy with which she lives her life to the fullest is what attracts De Grieux and becomes his undoing. His attention is captured by her girlish looks, but soon this “enchanteresse” takes hold of his heart. She brings the sparkle into his life and the fire soon consumes the young chevalier. The both live too intensely, love too passionately for all that emotion and energy to be contained in a normal human existence and even less in one incarcerated in the constraints of their times. The fire consumes them until nothing is left but ashes… But until then they immerse us with them in this whirlwind of emotions.
I used to think that there couldn’t be a more romantic hero in opera than Romeo… boring and unimaginative old me! Le Chevalier was an enchanteur like few would ever get the chance to be. Manon rightly says about his words “Elles charment le coeur en charmant les oreilles!”. There is lightness and oh so very French flourish in his first words and his every note has the power of tender and gentle seduction. And the notes only grow in intensity from here. Each je t’aime and je t’adore has a different colour, sometimes with rapture, sometimes with tenderness, sometimes with passion, sometimes with jealousy and most sweetly with abandonment. As if he opens his chest to take his heart out and hand it to her, especially at the end of St Sulpice. It is than that we feel he realises he cannot be free of her and will follow her wherever she leads, until destruction. But I like that Jonas portrayed his De Griuex with steel within, not as a weakling, who is helpless against where life takes him. Even when he throws away all remaining dignity and gambles against his own better judgement, there is still honour in his tone. This man is still le chevalier, it is as if it is not love that drowns him, but he throws himself at it with his whole being. I like this feeling that his decision is a conscious one in the end and it makes us not only feel sorrow for his suffering, but also admire his dedication. He makes you believe that he is the man Manon finally sees in the end, although sadly too late.
The final scene was particularly touching because their singing conveyed that at last, they are one, at last they fully understand and accept each other, but it is too late for this lifetime.
And all this was conveyed in a musical feast to remember for years! I savoured every word and every note, delighted in every colour and shading of both their voices. Such outstanding singing is truly rare. Natalie gave it all and she put such feeling across, that any natural strain in such a long performance only became an instrument to connect to the inner life of the character.
Jonas was simply amazing! I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing, that depth and power in the voice, where it was coming from and never seemed to reach any limits. I never realised just how difficult this score is and he took me into a very special kind of vocal paradise. The lines were endless and his voice just kept flying higher and higher. There was no breathing to be heard anywhere, the voice dropped instantly from the cliffs of acuti to soft and tender waters of piani. You could hear him from within choruses, embracing with his tone the whole ensemble. And all of this done with the utmost French elegance and refinement. No French lover has ever professed love so convincingly. It was so overpowering, it almost gave me vertigo!
Emmanuel Villaume encased the whole piece in a wonderfully guided musical construction. It sounded period true, completely harmonic, extremely romantic and with a touch of violence at the same time. For me he conveyed the flourish of the time which never managed to disguise the violence of the feelings and drives underneath. I was slightly amused to hear him be just as taken by the St Sulpice scene as everyone else ( it was then when his breathing got really audible in the broadcast) ;-) He skilfully and tastefully constructed the perfect Manon for this production with this orchestra, you could feel him adding the touches to the atmosphere like a painter with a sure hand mixing the colours in the landscape.
I also liked Christopher Feigum as Lescaut. His singing and French were of the special quality this night brought with it and he also colour his characters with shades that made the character believable and touching. Not so much for Guillot and the Count, who had a French - as a friend of mine very plastically put it - from the Bronx. I was also under wowed by both voices, although Raymond Aceto managed to convey some of the sternness and haughtiness of his character.
I am sure David McVicar was proud last night of his stars! Knowing what wonderful actors both Natalie and Jonas are, I can’t imagine them being anything else than captivating last night. It was a nice touch to hear that Jonas brought Davin on stage as I am sure they shared numerous enviable moment of artistic creativity during the last weeks :-)
For me, all there is left to be said is BRAVOOOOOOOOO, BRAVIIIIII, BRAVISSIMIIIII!!!!!!
Jonas and Natalie, you are my personal Enchanteur et Enchanteresse! There is nothing that could ever touch the memory of you two sining:
“N'est-ce pas ma main que cette main presse,
N'est-ce pas ma voix!
n'est-elle pour toi plus une caresse tout comme autrefois! »
Lyric Opera Chicago
Manon: Natalie Dessay
Des Grieux: Jonas Kaufmann
Lescaut: Christopher Feigum
Count des Grieux: Raymond Aceto
Guillot: David Cangelosi
Brétigny: Jake Gardner
Conductor: Emmanuel Villaume
Director: David McVicar
The fotos except for the first, curtesy of Keith Hale/Sun-Times from the Wednesday general rehearsal in the South Town Star
Operanuts found them first ;-))
PS Check out the WFMT website, they will do more live broadcasts, including the first night of the Les pêcheurs de perles on the 6th of October.
And here come the reviews:
I am especially glad that some more people got to enjoy the performance as much as I did and for this one which i will now link to i am particularily glad! Ximo, como me hubiera gustado poder charlar sobre esta funccion en particular en vivo! Gracias por el post, como siempre!
I encourage you to do so, you will discover just how well this Manon was received in Spain as well, where Jonas has more admirers than he probably knows :-)
.bmp)
