Puccini: Manon Lescaut Opera/3

GIACOMO PUCCINI: Manon Lescaut
semi-staged opera performance
in four acts, with one intermission

Manon Lescaut........................................ Monica Zanettin
Sergeant Lescaut.................................... Serban Vasile
Des Grieux.............................................. Andeka Gorrotxategi
Geronte di Ravoir.................................... Miklós Sebestyén
Edmondo................................................. Artavazd Sargsyan
Innkeeper / An officer............................... Dömötör Pintér
Dance master / Lamplighter..................... Flórián Körmendy 

A singer.................................................... Gabriella Busa
Naval captain........................................... István Gáspár

Director: Csaba Káel

Set design: Éva Szendrényi

Costumes: Kati Zoób

Revival director: Sylvie Gábor

Musical collaborator: Kálmán Szennai

Hungarian National Choir (Choirmaster: Csaba Somos)
Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra
Conductor: György Vashegyi

For the third concert of the Opera season ticket, an international cast of characters, the Hungarian National Choir and Philharmonic Orchestra will all take advantage of the attributes of Müpa Budapest’s Béla Bartók National Concert Hall to present a semi-staged performance of Puccini’s immortal masterpiece, Manon Lescaut. The production’s director, Csaba Káel, has been familiar with the hall’s potential since the very beginning, and has worked alongside conductor György Vashegyi in numerous mutual projects over the last few decades.

When, in his early thirties, Giacomo Puccini decided to set Antoine François Prévost’s 18th century romance novel The Story of the Chevalier des Grieux and Manon Lescaut to music, his publisher, Ricordi, tried to persuade him to abandon his plans. In 1884, the French Romantic composer Jules Massenet had already written Manon, a successful opera from the same literary source material. Puccini, however, was stubborn: he accepted the risk of failure, and wrote his own Manon Lescaut. He was later proved to be right: with its world premiere in Turin in 1893, the work gave him the first major success of his life.

The title role of the Hungarian National Philharmonic production is played by the Italian soprano Monica Zanettin, who has enjoyed most of her most significant successes in Puccini and Verdi productions. In recent years, her partner, the Basque tenor Andeka Gorrotxategi who will play the Knight of Grieux, has excelled in roles in the operas of Verdi, Bizet, Puccini and Leoncavallo from Rome to Lausanne and from Madrid to Salzburg.The international cast contains the globetrotting Romanian baritone Serban Vasile and the popular French tenor Artavazd Sargsyan, with several superb Hungarian singers, Miklós Sebestyén, Dömötör Pintér, Flórián Körmendy, Gabriella Busa and István Gáspár, further enhancing the performance. The conductor, György Vashegyi, has been conducting opera for several decades, including as a regularly returning guest of the Hungarian State Opera.