# OH 02.05.2015 - Manon



## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

It's time for Opera Hour again, folks! The random number generator gave me #52:

*Manon* - Jules Massenet

I'm going with Beverly Sills, Julius Rudel at the helm with New Philharmonia:


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

Will have to pass on this one.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

I like Sills in this role, but the vintage Monteux recording with De Los Angeles still holds the palm.


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

Here's a little background to the opera:

_Manon was written by Massenet during the summer of 1882 while he was living at The Hague in the same house in which the Abbe Prevost lived when he wrote his novel. The opera tells the story of a charming young French girl who is too anxious for a life of pleasure, too young to know the ways of the world and how to avoid its pitfalls - and yet so artless that we cannot find it in our hearts to condemn her but feel only pity and sympathy as her career winds its course to a degrading and un-happy close._

-Complete Stories of the Great Operas; Milton Cross

Some of the highlights of the opera include:

*Act I*: "Je suis encor' tout étourdie"

*Act II*: "Adieu, notre petite table"

*Act III*: "N'est-ce plus ma main"

*Act V*: "Tu pleures!"


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Oh, _clearly_ the Monteux with Victoria De Los Angeles.

De Los Angeles_ is _Manon._ Such_ flirty, angelic charm.

If there's people don't like her in this it wouldn't surprise me.

There's people who don't like 'life.'

_;D_


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