Giacomo Puccini’s “Chamber Music Moment”

The opening measures of the Intermezzo preceding the third act of Giacomo Puccini’s Manon Lescaut (from IMSLP, public domain)

Readers may recall my disappointment with the opening night of the San Francisco Opera production of Giacomo Puccini’s Manon Lescaut at the War Memorial Opera House. Nevertheless, I returned to the Opera House yesterday afternoon for the fifth of this production’s six performances. My subscription seat provides an excellent view of the orchestra pit; and, having enjoyed Nicola Luisotti’s performances during his tenure as SFO Music Director, I welcomed the opportunity to see him in action again.

The vantage point turned out to be particularly beneficial for what I had previously singled out as the high-point of the performance, the Intermezzo that preceded the third act. When I wrote about that music in my previous account, I called out the “resources as intimate as a string quartet.” Viewing the orchestra pit provided the opportunity to observe those resources in action, sending me to check out the score for a better sense of just how Puccini was managing those resources. As can be seen in the above copy of the opening measures, those resources are led by an extended passage for solo cello, which is eventually joined by a solo viola and a solo violin.

Luisotti could not have been more attentive to the expressiveness of this passage. After two full acts of little more than potboiler antics, one could finally settle into music that was genuinely passionate led by a conductor that clearly appreciated every one of its building blocks. Indeed, after the Intermezzo had run its full rhetorical course, the applause from the audience made it clear that the music had penetrated the very soul of every listener. As might be expected, Luisotti took a well-deserved bow; and, for those of us who could see, he then had Principal Cello David Kadarauch take a bow of his own.

Those first six minutes before the curtain rises on the third act remain the high point of the entire production, and I suspect that my own opinion ranks them just as high across the full canon of Puccini’s music.