
Giacomo Puccini

Mieczysław Weinberg

Giuseppe Verdi

Pyotr Tchaikovsky

Giuseppe Verdi

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Benjamin Britten

Grigory Frid. Udo Zimmermann

Carl Maria von Weber — Gustav Mahler

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Alexander Tchaikovsky

Giacomo Puccini

Alexander Dargomyzhsky

Richard Strauss

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Giuseppe Verdi

Antonín Dvořák

Dmitri Shostakovich

Gaetano Donizetti

Pyotr Tchaikovsky

Sergei Banevich

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

George Frideric Handel

Georges Bizet

Pyotr Tchaikovsky

Gioachino Rossini

Dimitry Rostovsky

Giacomo Puccini

Richard Wagner

Richard Strauss

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Georges Bizet

Dmitri Shostakovich
Alexei Verstovsky

Anton Rubinstein
Guiseppe Verdi

Pyotr Tchaikovsky

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Georg Philipp Telemann

Sergei Prokofiev

Modest Mussorgsky

Antonio Salieri

Gaetano Donizetti

Benjamin Britten. Camille Saint-Saëns

Pyotr Tchaikovsky

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Gioacchino Rossini

Dmitri Shostakovich
Umberto Giordano

Modest Mussorgsky
Hector Berlioz

Giacomo Puccini

Jacques Offenbach

Sergei Prokofiev. Maurice Ravel

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Tatiana Kamysheva

The world premiere of G. Puccini’s Manon Lescaut happened at the Teatro Regio in Turin on the 1st of February 1893. It was the composer’s triumph: according to the feedback from contemporaries, “the whole of Italy was driven mad in its admiration for this opera”. No less important was the London premiere that took place the following year on the stage of Covent Garden. George Bernard Shaw, known not only for his plays but also his exceptionally engaging and at times cutting music reviews, had a warm reaction to it. His review offered the prophetic blessing: ”It seems to me that Puccini is to a higher degree than any of his competitors likely to be Verdi’s heir”.
Premiered on October 16, 2016.
Presented with one interval.
Libretto by Domenico Oliva, Marco Praga, Giuseppe Giacosa, Luigi Illica, Ruggero Leoncavallo, and Giulio Ricordi based on the novel L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by Abbé Prévost
Act I
A public square in Amiens
Students enjoy the summer evening in the town square. One of them, Edmondo, sings a madrigal of youthful pleasure, hoping to attract the young women. They ask a brooding Des Grieux to join them, and to prove he is not cynical about love, he gallantly flirts with a group of girls with mock courtesy. As they all celebrate in the street, a carriage arrives at the inn carrying Geronte, Lescaut and his sister Manon. Des Grieux is struck by Manon’s beauty and shyly approaches her. She is called inside by her brother, but has been won over by Des Grieux’s words, and they make plans to meet later.