MANON LESCAUT at Polish National Opera

This Manon Lescaut, from her story put down by Abbé Prévost in 1731, is still too strong for an opera: after all here we have the fate of a priest, who had abandoned his cassock for a woman hardly any better than a harlot, became a cheat and ended as an outcast. But the opera convention dissolves the realistic detail in the great belcanto ascending flight: Puccini elevated Manon at the expense of her youthful lover, added an ugly rival and made the incorrigible flighty girl suffer the twists of fate. We all like this lie: it’s the world that is guilty, not us! Therefore, we all believe it and for almost 120 years we have been adoring the misfortunate Manon, changing hands, insulted, deported and dying in the wilderness. And Father Prévost, who knew love