First impressions are important, but they shouldn't lead to snap judgment. It is usually wiser to stop and think, but in the world of opera – especially Puccini – lovers tend to fall in love at first ...

Manon Lescaut is an opera in four acts by Giacomo Puccini. The story is based on the 1731 novel L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost and should not be confused ...

Manon Lescaut is an opera in four acts by Giacomo Puccini. The story is based on the 1731 novel L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost. The libretto is in Italian, ...

It's set in early 18th Century France—and Louisiana. Puccini felt that he could bring true Italian passion to the tale, and indeed he did. Though it’s an early work, it contains much of the rich, ...

Kristine Opolais in Act 2 of ‘Manon Lescaut’ (all photos by Ken Howard, courtesy Metropolitan Opera) (click to enlarge) The Met’s new production of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, directed by Richard Eyre, ...

The Washington National Opera’s brilliant revival of “Manon Lescaut” demonstrates that as early as 1893, when Giacomo Puccini was writing this, his first popular work, he knew well how to use music to ...

Hear Kristine Opolais and Roberto Alagna as the ill-fated lovers in Puccini’s passionate adaptation of the classic novel about a free-spirited country girl. Sir Richard Eyre’s new production, ...

Director Olivier Tambosi's production of Manon Lescaut, composer Giacomo Puccini's first triumph, returns to San Francisco Opera for six performances on the War Memorial Opera House stage, from ...

Giacomo Puccini was right on time. With Italy’s greatest opera composer, Giuseppe Verdi, in the twilight of his career, it appeared the country’s status as an operatic epicenter might end with the ...

Treliński is in any case much taken with the theme. Not only is his Manon (Chiara Taigi) already fallen when she first appears in a red plastic raincoat and dark glasses, a gangster’s moll to the life ...

However, it has be said that Jude Christian’s production seriously misfires. Often crass and crude, strewn with farcical, pointless bits of business and dressed in a repulsive palette of ...