Manon Lescaut, << mah nawn lehs koh, >> is an opera in four acts by the Italian composer Giacomo Puccini. The libretto (text) in Italian was written by Luigi Illica, Giuseppe Giacosa, and others. It was based on a French novel, The Story of the Chevalier Des Grieux and of Manon Lescaut, written in 1731 by the Abbe Antoine-Francois Prevost (1697-1763). The same novel had earlier been used as the basis of the 1884 opera Manon by the French composer Jules Massanet. Puccini’s Manon Lescaut received its first performance at Turin on Feb. 1, 1893.
The setting for most of the opera is France during the 1700’s. At an inn, the young Chevalier Des Grieux sees Manon Lescaut, a young woman who is on her way to a convent. The two fall in love. They decide to elope and steal a carriage belonging to Geronte de Ravoir. Soon, under the urging of her brother Lescaut, Manon deserts Des Grieux and lives a life of luxury as Geronte’s mistress. Meanwhile, Des Grieux makes his fortune at the gaming tables. He persuades Manon to run away with him again. This time, she takes some jewelry belonging to Geronte. Geronte calls in the police, and Manon is arrested and later convicted of theft and prostitution. She is sentenced to be deported to the French colony of New Orleans, in North America. Having failed to get her released, Des Grieux finds the prison ship at Le Havre on which she is being transported and pleads with the captain to let him go with her. In the last scene, Des Grieux and Manon have escaped from New Orleans into the surrounding desert. An exhausted Manon collapses and dies in her lover’s arms.
Manon Lescaut was Puccini’s first mature opera. The music shows the influence of the German composer Richard Wagner. Many of the harmonies reflect, in particular, Puccini’s love for Wagner’s opera Tristan and Isolde. There are fewer famous arias in Manon Lescaut than there are in Puccini’s later works, but his general handling of the libretto, the writing of which he rigorously supervised, shows that he was already a talented operatic craftsman.
