Manon Lescaut and the Myth of America
2008; Oxford University Press; Volume: 24; Issue: 1-2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1093/oq/kbp020
ISSN1476-2870
Autores Tópico(s)Diversity and Impact of Dance
ResumoOf all Puccini's mature operas, Manon Lescaut is one of the least associated with global or exotic themes. A setting of an eighteenth-century French sentimental novel that had inspired the work of Alexandre Dumas fils, with a premiere that some thought symbolized the handing over of the Italian operatic tradition from the old maestro of Busseto to the fledgling from Lucca, Puccini's first success has from the time of its earliest reception implicitly been glossed as simply European.1 Considered within the context of Puccini's later work, Manon Lescaut's French locations seem an obvious precursor to the Parisian ambience of La bohème; the usual narrative of Puccini's career tells us that it was not until the turn of the twentieth century that his attention focused on international tales such as Madama Butterfly and La fanciulla del West. The fact that Manon Lescaut's last act is set in a “vast plain on the outskirts of New Orleans” is most often mentioned merely as a precursor of La fanciulla. This has in part derived from a longstanding critical opinion: that act 4 of Manon Lescaut, despite including some of Puccini's most remarkable music, was—in Mosco Carner's words—a “blunder,” its twenty-minute death scene betraying Puccini's still developing sense of theater.2 Perhaps also influential in turning critics away from the act's ambience has been its apparent lack of visual markers of the New World. The bare landscape is completely unlike the opulent, intricate sets for the first three acts; as Alessandra Campana has commented, “in contrast with the over defined and detailed depiction of the environment provided for the other acts, this set negates any characterization, and offers instead a static picture of an undifferentiated space that represents a ‘nowhere.’”3 As a visual expression of the title character's isolation and despair, the featureless backdrop is apt; it represents, as Roger Parker has argued, an apotheosis of a nineteenth-century trajectory toward interior emotion on the opera stage.4
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