[Met Performance] CID:82360



Manon Lescaut
Metropolitan Opera House, Mon, December 11, 1922




Manon Lescaut (58)
Giacomo Puccini | Luigi Illica/Giuseppe Giacosa/Marco Praga/Ruggero Leoncavallo
Manon
Frances Alda

Des Grieux
Beniamino Gigli

Lescaut
Antonio Scotti

Geronte
Adamo Didur

Edmondo
Giordano Paltrinieri

Innkeeper
Millo Picco

Solo Madrigalist
Myrtle Schaaf

Sergeant
Vincenzo Reschiglian

Lamplighter
Pietro Audisio

Captain
Paolo Ananian


Conductor
Gennaro Papi







Review 1:

Review of Henry T. Finck in the Post

Manon Lescaut Sung At the Metropolitan

Alda and Gigli heard in Puccini Opera

Puccini's "Manon Lescaut" had its second performance this season at the Metropolitan last night under Gennnaro Papi and with a cast headed by Frances Alda, Beniamino Gigli (Jilyee, if you please), and Antonio Scotti in the parts respectively of Manon, the frivolous French girl who, labeled for a convent, elopes with the Chevalier des Grieux just when a wealthy man is about to abduct her, and subsequently leads a frothy life ending in tragedy. Des Grieux and Lescaut, Manon's brother, none of them much better morally than professional politicians, the only real criminal class in America, as Mark Twain remarked sagely and seriously.

The singers named, aided by with others in minor parts, gave of their best; the performance was smooth, and the audience was duly appreciative, especially after Gigli's great air and the love duo. The audience got quite excited over the scene at Havre where Des Grieux, having failed in his effort to free Manon from imprisonment, in vain begs the captain of the ship which is to transport her to New Orleans to take him along.

"Manon Lescaut" is not a masterwork like Massenet's "Manon," nor is it as ripe as Puccini's later operas "Tosca' and "Madama Butterfly," but it is full of fresh juvenile melody, and for its age sounds quite young. It was first sung in Turin in 1892, in America in 1898 (in Philadelphia).



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