Manon Lescaut is a shambolic opera – but the Met’s production is mainly excellent

Manon Lescaut
Met Opera Live

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Puccini’s Manon Lescaut is his first opera worth seeing and hearing, and marks an astonishing progress from what preceded it. But Puccini had yet to learn how to bully his librettists into producing the well-constructed dramas of his later operas, and for all its delights Manon Lescaut is a shambles. Richard Eyre has updated it to France in 1941, to stress the moral ambiguity of everything there and then, with occupying forces, indecisive leading characters, a general unease. That works reasonably well, though the real problem is that Puccini is uncertain about the motives of his central characters, especially Manon herself, who veers between helpless anxiety and ruthless scheming. Her brother isn’t an intelligible creation, but what keeps the work afloat is the ardour of Des Grieux and the too-brief love scenes.