Not the Best Afternoon at the Opera

Yesterday afternoon my wife and I returned to the War Memorial Opera House to use the next round in our San Francisco Opera (SFO) subscription tickets. The performance presented the five-act opera by Jules Massenet, Manon. The libretto by Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille was based on a novel by the Abbé Prévost whose full title was L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut. (Those that know that “histoire” is French for “story” should have no trouble translating the title!)

The libretto is a narrative fraught with misfortune. In contemporary language, the title character may be described as a “free spirit.” Indeed, in the staging by Vincent Boussard, one gets the impression that she believes that everyone she meets is smitten with her. Sadly, however, I came away feeling that Massenet’s music was not particularly conducive to most (if not all) of the narrative. Mind you, this was an opera that required a fair amount of intense delivery by many of the vocalists; and I found it disappointing the set designs by Vincent Lemaire tended to undermine the vocal delivery.

Pene Pati as the Chevalier des Grieux in one of his more intimate moments with Manon (Amina Edris) (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of SFO)

The leading vocalists were soprano Amina Edris in the title role and tenor Pene Pati as the hapless Chevalier des Grieux. Both of them delivered dynamite performances, regardless of the impact of the set designs. Their command of the many challenges in Massenet’s score were always “on the money.” Nevertheless, the narrative is just not a particularly engaging one; and, in many respects, the visual experience tended to be more compelling than the musical delivery.

The good news is that conductor Eun Sun Kim was “in full command” of that musical delivery. As usual, her command of the SFO Orchestra was a solid one, which was particularly engaging when the music tended to “take charge” of the narrative with more expressiveness than the vocal work! That said, Kim’s chemistry with the vocalists on stage was as solid as her direction of the instrumentalists. Nevertheless, there was little she could do when the music came across as “out of step” with the narrative. Apparently, Massenet’s relationship with Meilhac and Gille was not a particularly conducive one!