Manon

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Royal Ballet Manon Royal Opera House Covent Garden, 2 March 2024 13:00

While watching Manon on Saturday I was struck by the similarities to MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet.   Not so much with the libretti perhaps though Manon loses Lescaut and Juliet loses Tybalt and both sets of lovers come to a sticky end.  The similarities I had in mind were the choreography with its spectacular duets including one around a bed and great sword fights.  Also, Nicholas Georgiadis created the sets and costumes for both ballets.

Although this was an original thought as far as I was concerned  I doubted that it was novel.   I ran a Google search on "similarities between MacMillan's Manon and Romeo & Juliet"  The only comparison that came to light was Robert Gottlieb's Manon and Romeo and Juliet.   Mr Gottlieb does not seem to have been at all impressed.  He described Manon as "a piece of junk" and complained that Romeo and Juliet was "tedious at times" though "relatively stage-worthy."  

Some pretty uncomplimentary things have been said about the ballet by such critics as Mary Clarke and Jane King but the public seem to like it.  It will celebrate its half-century in a few days and it has been performed by the world's leading ballet companies.  The House was packed to the gunwales on the afternoon of 2 March 2024 when I saw it.  Not a few patrons rose to their feet at the curtain call which does not happen for every show.   I agree that the leading characters, Manon, des Grieux, Lascaut and Monsieur GM are morally flawed and the story is pretty sordid but that did not make it a waste of the lovely Antoinette Sibley or any of her successors.

For those who do not know the ballet it is summarized on the Royal Opera House website.   It is based on the novel  Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux, et de Manon Lescaut by Antoine François Prévost which had already been dramatized, made into several films, at least one other ballet and Puccini's popular opera Manon Lescaut.  MacMillan did not adapt Puccini's score even though it would have been familiar to many members of his audience.  Instead, he commissioned Leighton Lucas to compile a score from Jules Massenet's collected works

The advertised dancers for the lead roles were to be Sarah Lamb and Steven McRae.  McRea was unavailable on Saturday so the role of des Grieux was danced by Ryoichi Hirano.  Lamb reminds me a little of Antoinette Sibley who first danced Manon and Hirano is the sort of chap who could be expected to handle the eye-catching lifts and fish dives with ease.   James Hay danced Lescaut, not an easy role as he had to project a range of emotions.  In one scene he is drunk manhandling his mistress Meaghan Grace Hinkis in one of the few comic scenes from the show. Shortly afterwards, he is dragged in chains and roughed up by Monsieur GM,   That role was danced by the venerable Christopher Saunders who has been dancing in the Royal Ballet for almost as long as I have been following it.

As for the creatives, Koen Kessels conducted the orchestra, Laura Morera staged the performance and Christopher Saunders was the rehearsal director.

I lost count of the number of curtain calls. Sarah Lamb received enough flowers to set up in business as a forest. There were also some for Hirano which would never have happened in Dame Anroinette's day, She used to select one of her choicest blooms and present it to her partner who would sniff the perfume in gratitude. In a reversal of the old tradition, Hirano presented one of his flowers to Lamb.

There are now two different versions of this ballet in this country: the Royal Ballet's version with Georgiadis's designs and English National's that I mentioned but did not review in French Revelation: "The Three Musketeers" on 9 Oct 2018. The main difference between the two is that ENB's came from Denmark and uses the designs of Mia Stensgaard.