This is Henze's second opera. You wouldn't know from the title, but it's another Manon Lescaut story, by way of a theatrical retelling of the story by this title. It's more or less the same story, but updated to a modern-day (ie, fifties) setting. It's more focused on Manon's long-suffering lover, here named "Armand" and never referred to as des Grieux. He's sort of seeing her on and off while she's being the mistress of several other men, as facilitated by her totally amoral brother Lescaut, here a pimp/drug dealer who, in contrast to other versions of the story, has no redeeming qualities. Obviously, nobody's going to be exiled to America here; instead, at the behest of her brother, Manon shoots and kills the old man who's keeping her, and the whole thing ends kind of inconclusively with her being imprisoned and her ultimate fate unknown. Anyway, it certainly seems like more of a crime than just being a prostitute.
I liked this...okay. For some reason that is difficult to understand, I still feel a nonsensical psychological aversion to the story, but this version is at least different enough to keep it somewhat interesting. The music is a sort of discordant jazzy stuff. Definitely some dramatic moments. This production is a handsome fifities-ish thing. The highlight for me is Tom Fox as an extremely sinister, Walter-White-looking Lescaut.
It's kind of astounding to me that a guy who was writing operas in the fifties was likewise writing operas in the oughts. The three that I've seen so far are all spread out pretty well, so you can definitely hear his career at different phases, even if there isn't necessarily a clear through-line. Regardless, I look forward to seeing more. He has one, Das verratene Meer, based on Mishima's poisonous Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, which isn't available anywhere but which I'd love to see. Seems like a great setting for an opera.
(Lescaut, that I recall, didn't have any redeeming qualities in the book, eithe.)
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