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A stark drama without soul
Lovers passing like trains in the night: Sara Tynan as Manon Lescaut and Jason Bridges as the lustfully eager student Armand des Grieux. Pictures: Johan Persson Boulevard Solitude
Welsh National Opera
Birmingham Hippodrome
*** CALL me old fashioned, all right, old as
well, but I do like my opera with tunes, arias to touch the soul, duets
or ensemble pieces to amuse or amaze, to add drama or lift the spirit,
in short something to hum happily to yourself on the journey home. Opera has the ability to bring goose bumps to the emotions – hence the popularity of Nessun dorma. It will forever be associated with Italia 90. Most football fans probably cannot tell you it is
from Turandot, or even from an opera, let alone that it was composed by
Puccini, but that detracts nothing from the power and beauty of an aria
which is better known than the Italia 90 winners (West Germany if you
were wondering). Boulevard Soitude might have the drama, stark and
raw, but it has no Nessun dorma moments. It is is German composer Hans
Werner Henze’s first full blown opera, written in 1951 and is based on
the Manon Lescaut story and WNO artistic director David Poutney, who
worked with Henze as his assistant, has cleverly added this modern opera
to the WNO’s Fallen Women Series of La traviata and Manon Lescaut,
Puccini’s take on the same Manon story and his first operatic success. To further link the two versions they share the same director, Mariusz Trelinski, set designer Boris Kudlick, and indeed setting in a French station and both are lit by Felice Ross. But this is perhaps one more for the purists
rather than the romantics. The singing is excellent, the musicianship
She could have been our tragic heroine but
although you might lust after her, especially in the shape of skimpily
dressed soprano Sara Tynan, whose costume seems to have been inspired by
Ann Summers, her character asks no questions of the less base emotions. She sings the part well and manages to convey her
empty life of selling sex for a living with a clear soprano voice that
seems devoid of hope – indeed hope is missing throughout the whole 90
minute one act opera. Manon’s pimp is her brother Lescaut, a believable
performance from the leather jacketed brooding baritone Benjamin Bevan,
and there is good support from tenor Adrian Thompson as the rich old man
who keeps Manon as his mistress until her indiscretions, or those of her
brother to be more accurate, see her thrown out but old men can only
throw so far so in this case it is only as far as next door to Lilaque’s
son, played by baritone Laurence Cole. The set is provides us with every scene without
the need of any change except lighting. We have the bar, empty when
Armand and Manon first meet, then full of business men and a selection
of prostitutes, or perhaps they were merely lingerie models on a break.
It also gives us a station concourse, a seedy backstreet and the salon
of both father and son Lilaque where there is a sense of not so much of
sexuality but depravity and degradation – sex as a commodity rather than
communion. Even her relationship, of sorts, with Armand
starts by paying homage to that well known Irish star Connie Lingus,
with a reprise when three visitors in pig heads, representing clients,
make their own introductions to a horizontal Manon served up on
Lilaque’s desk The opera is divided into seven scenes, opening
like a slow motion episode of CSI with police marking out a crime scene
and Manon being led away. It is the bare bones and, like Groundhog Day, it
is a scene which we keep coming back to, with each return adding more
flesh to the narrative the truth is finally revealed and Manon is led
away for a life in prison. It is a disturbing opera, stark and uncomfortable
to watch and ultimately an unsatisfying experience, devoid of fun or
even humanity. At the end and it was hard to feel anything for any of
the characters. This is a Lyrisches Drama, a lyric drama, with strong
jazz influences. There are no great arias, no memorable tunes, no heroes
or heroines, and at the end just a feeling of emptiness and despair, and
perhaps that was the point, a reflection of the lives we had witnessed.
03-14. Roger Clarke
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of the WNO orchestra under conductor Lotha Koenigs is, as always
exemplary, but somehow there is no involvement, no passion, no lyrical
or dramatic passages to sweep you along. You are like the witness to a
car crash, and perhaps that is what is intended.