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Critic's Notebook

‘Manon Lescaut’ at the Met Opera: A Courtesan in Need of Context

Anna Netrebko in Richard Eyre’s production of Puccini’s “Manon Lescaut,” at the Metropolitan Opera.Credit...Richard Termine for The New York Times

Vocally the revival of Puccini’s “Manon Lescaut,” which opened at the Metropolitan Opera on Monday, is ravishing. It’s almost enough to make sense of Richard Eyre’s problematic production of this already dramatically inconsistent work.

The soprano Anna Netrebko sang the title role for the first time at this house. She gave a bravura performance that included searing intensity and coquettish whim, often welded together in a single scene. A glint of steel was already apparent in her first appearance as a convent-bound ingénue simmering with suppressed passion. In Act II, when she has become the kept woman of a wealthy man and tries to smother her unhappiness with pearls and powder puffs, vulnerability trembled beneath the surface of the bored sex kitten.

That the role of Manon should suit Ms. Netrebko at this point in her career, where her voice has gained alluring earthiness in the low register while maintaining the rainbow hues of her powerful top notes, should come as no surprise.

A much bigger revelation was the tenor Marcelo Álvarez as des Grieux, the lover Manon alternately runs away with, and from. Perhaps his opening aria, “Tra voi belle,” was a touch forced and lacked the Mozartean lightness that should characterize this openhearted student at the beginning of the story, but through the evening his voice developed a virile beauty of uncanny power and depth. The single word “pietà!” — “mercy!” — rang out with explosive force and desperation as he flung it heavenward late in the opera, when des Grieux and Manon find they can save their love only if they choose exile and death. How many tenors have uttered that word on the Met’s stage with only half the feverish urgency of Mr. Álvarez?

Because Mr. Eyre’s production sets the action in Nazi-occupied France, it has been billed as “film noir.” In fact “noirish” might well fit the sound of this particular cast: Ms. Netrebko’s soprano is darkly hued, Mr. Álvarez’s tenor has oodles of baritonal shadings, and the excellent support of Christopher Maltman’s Lescaut and Brindley Sherratt’s Geronte magnified every appearance of these two deeper-voiced characters. Even the minor role of a musician who recites madrigals written by Manon’s rich patron, sung by the captivating Avery Amereau, stood out for the unusually rich, saturated auburn timbre of her voice. The conductor Marco Armiliato led an attentive performance from the orchestra, full of subtle fluctuations in tempo and heat.

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Marcelo Álvarez, center, as des Grieux, the lover Manon alternately runs away with and from, in “Manon Lescaut” at the Metropolitan Opera. Although the production is set in France during World War II, Manon ends up exiled in Louisiana all the same.Credit...Richard Termine for The New York Times

Missing was a corresponding depth in the directorial concept. Rob Howell’s sets depicting opulent neo-Classical architecture are handsome enough. Their transformation in the final scene is the production’s one original touch: The imaginary desert of Louisiana in which Puccini lets Manon expire of thirst is here represented by the bombed-out ruins of those same Belle Époque sets. No need to leave home: When a civilization is laid to waste, exile is internal.

But just what caused this downfall? Mr. Eyre can’t make up his mind: German officers mill about despondently in the opera’s opening scene and oversee the deportation of Manon along with a group of prostitutes in the end. But we never see the other characters interact with them, no evidence of resistance or collaboration. Is French culture destroyed by the Nazis or by the moral depravity of rich men like Manon’s sugar daddy, Geronte, who make accommodations with them? By the venality of Manon’s brother, Lescaut, who thinks nothing of pimping her, or perhaps by Manon’s own love of luxury, as seems to be the verdict of Puccini and the seven librettists he worked with on this opera?

In fact, Puccini was already far removed from the social context that gave rise to the opera’s literary source, a 1731 novel by Abbé Prévost. A fascinating 2013 book by the historian Nina Kushner, “Erotic Exchanges,” has unveiled the stratified world of 18th-century prostitution in France. “Working as a professional mistress afforded a degree of agency and a potential for financial success unusual for women from such humble backgrounds,” she writes. “The most successful among them became heads of households and enjoyed financial and sexual freedoms uncommon to all but aristocratic women.”

Ms. Kushner’s book is full of examples of kept women who supported extended families through their contractual relationships with wealthy men and also successfully maintained love affairs with partners of their free romantic choice. Many went on to marry these lovers.

The question that Manon Lescaut’s story poses becomes more complex and much more fascinating when seen in this context. The director Victoria Crutchfield, who took part in an opera festival centered on depictions of the French demimonde, said in an interview: “Manon’s story is not about her fall into prostitution. It’s about how she fails to rise to a successful and secure position through it.”

Perhaps the most radical updating of “Manon Lescaut” would be one that, with an unsentimental and historically informed eye, returns it to the 18th century.

“Manon Lescaut” runs through Dec. 10 at the Metropolitan Opera On Monday, Dec. 7 and Dec. 10, the soprano Kristine Opolais takes the title role.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section C, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Courtesan in Need of Context. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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