# Manon or Manon Lescaut?



## Queen of the Nerds (Dec 22, 2014)

OK... I don't know if there is serious debate over this topic, but I have thought about it for the last several hours, and I was wondering what you all thought. So this is my question:
Massenet's Manon or Puccini's Manon Lescaut? Which is better? And why?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I don't know which is better. But I'll take Massenet. Manon must have naivete and panache - a sort of Lolita Antoinette. Bidding her petite table farewell: charming! Puccini turns her into another of his morbid sufferers. Oh, so serious. I want to shed a little tear, not give a pay raise to the CEO of Kleenex. Massenet gives Des Grieux better music to sing as well. 

Yes, yes. Oui, oui. Massenet pour moi.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Manon, It has de los Angeles :angel:


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> I don't know which is better. But I'll take Massenet. Manon must have naivete and panache - a sort of Lolita Antoinette. Bidding her petite table farewell: charming! Puccini turns her into another of his morbid sufferers. Oh, so serious. I want to shed a little tear, not give a pay raise to the CEO of Kleenex.* Massenet gives Des Grieux better music to sing as well. *
> 
> Yes, yes. Oui, oui. Massenet pour moi.


That clinches it for me too.


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## Diminuendo (May 5, 2015)

Callas recorded Puccini's so I'm tempted to say that, but I still have to say Massenet. With Di Stefano as Des Grieux and in French please.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Diminuendo said:


> Callas recorded Puccini's so I'm tempted to say that, but I still have to say Massenet. With Di Stefano as Des Grieux and in French please.


Did he sing French?


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

I serious wonder why people_ always_ have to choose?

Just buy them both , as for recommend recordings, there's a special topic for that :tiphat:


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## Diminuendo (May 5, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Did he sing French?


Do you mean at all or this opera? In this opera at least on the 1951 Met production.

http://www.metopera.org/ondemand/catalog/detail.aspx?upc=811357013601


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Pugg said:


> *I serious wonder why people always have to choose?:*confused:
> 
> Just buy them both , as for recommend recordings, there's a special topic for that :tiphat:


For fun Pugster


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## Diminuendo (May 5, 2015)

Pugg said:


> I serious wonder why people_ always_ have to choose?
> 
> Just buy them both , as for recommend recordings, there's a special topic for that :tiphat:


Of course I like them both and there is no need to to choose just one. But you still might prefer one more that the other.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> I don't know which is better. But *I'll take Massenet. Manon must have naivete and panache - a sort of Lolita Antoinette*. Bidding her petite table farewell: charming! Puccini turns her into another of his morbid sufferers. Oh, so serious. I want to shed a little tear, not give a pay raise to the CEO of Kleenex. Massenet gives Des Grieux better music to sing as well.
> 
> Yes, yes. Oui, oui. Massenet pour moi.












That's the most perfect encapsulation of Manon I've ever heard: "a sort of Lolita Anoinette". . .

My vote's for the Massenet characterization over the Puccini because the Massenet just positively exudes a sunny Gallic cheerful buoyancy and charm whereas the Puccini is more just amiable and pretty. 
_
Manon a la Vicky_ is the only way to go for me as well. _;D_


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## Diminuendo (May 5, 2015)

Sorry I couldn't resist.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Diminuendo said:


> Sorry I couldn't resist.


Just trying to make us cry, aren't you, Dim?

Well, it worked.


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## Diminuendo (May 5, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Just trying to make us cry, aren't you, Dim?
> 
> Well, it worked.


This video tends to do that. A lot better than the studio version. I remember watching this video for the first time and . It still gets me emotional every time. A pity she didn't record the whole opera.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Both are meh...


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

I don´t like any of them that much but I prefer Manon Lescaut.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

I'm not a big fan of either of them, but forced to choose, I do prefer Puccini's.

By the way, there are a couple of other operas about Manon; one by Auber, predating Massenet and Puccini, that was quite succesful in the 19th century:






The other one is Henze's _Boulevard Solitude_, though in this case rather than based on Prévost, I would say "inspired". I like this opera a lot, though for traditional fans it could be a small challenge:


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## Cesare Impalatore (Apr 16, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> I don't know which is better. But I'll take Massenet. Manon must have naivete and panache - a sort of Lolita Antoinette. Bidding her petite table farewell: charming! Puccini turns her into another of his morbid sufferers.


I agree with this *in theory* but in reality I have too much of a penchant for drama to not prefer Manon Lescaut. Lescaut is actually one of my very favourite Puccini operas, maybe not as much of an ideal Manon as Massenet's (with De Los Angeles) but an ideal tragedy of its own with lots of suffering for me to enjoy. I mean just listen to this:






Puccini's Des Grieux music is not too bad either, _Donna non vidi mai_, _Ah! Manon, mi tradisce_ and _Pazzo son_ are all extremely memorable tenor highlights. The whole opera is a highlight, really, like most Puccini.


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## Diminuendo (May 5, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Did he sing French?


Here are two videos from a performance of the opera from 1948 from Mexico. In French. Enjoy


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

My preference would definitely be for Massenet, which is a truer representation of the Abbe Prevost novel. There is something so quintessentially French about the sparkling, glittering score, and Massenet's chracterisation of Manon is spot on. He doesn't over-sentimentalise her as Puccini is prone to do. Beecham once said he would gladly forgo all Bach's Brandenburg Concertos for Massenet's *Manon*. He was only half joking. It is after all a perfectly crafted score. I know we're not discussing recordings, but the old Monteux recording, with De Los Angeles a perfect Manon still takes a lot of beating.

I do like the Puccini opera, but it is an early work in his canon, and his grasp of theatre is not quite as assured as it was to become. Act IV can seem somehwat anticlimactic after the superb finale to Act III, though Callas and Di Stefano do a lot to rescue it in their recording.


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## HumphreyAppleby (Apr 11, 2013)

Puccini hadn't found his voice yet, so his is a bit disjointed (which may also be due to the group project that was the libretto), but it sure has its moments. Massenet's opera is beautiful, but a little too, I don't know, fluffy. Gedda and Sills sure made an incredible recording of it, though.

Ultimately, there's a soft passage about 2/3 of the way through the intermezzo to _Manon Lescaut_ which I would trade Massenet's entire opera for (I'd have to think about the Brandenburg concertos).


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