Given my love for La Traviata and all things related to Marie Duplessis, of course I wanted to see Manon at the Met. We made it to the second, of only six performances last Thursday night.
My verdict: C’est Magnifique!
To those of you still baffled by that first sentence and the connection between the two operas, allow me to explain. Verdi’s masterpiece, La Traviata was based on the play, Camille, which was based on the novel, La Dame Aux Camelias. The novel and play were written by Alexandre Dumas fils and were both based on his brief love affair with Mademoiselle Duplessis – an infamous Parisian courtesan who died of tuberculosis at age 23. In both the book and the play (and in most of the film versions), Marguerite Gautier (the heroine) receives a copy of the novel Manon Lescout from her lover. Dumas fils apparently really did give Marie a copy of Abbé Prévost’s novel. Continue reading Manon — Another Opera with a Tragic Bad Girl