Jules Massenet, Le portrait de Manon (1894)

From the sublime to the ridiculous--did you know that Massenet wrote a dang sequel to Manon?  Not withstanding my barely tolerate-hate relationship with Massenet, I had to check it out (okay, "hate" is too strong--I've never hated a Massenet opera; I've just never particularly liked one).

So what's ol Des Grieux been up to since Manon died?  Mainly moping around, it seems, mooning over the titular portrait.  He's also tutoring his nephew Jean in history.  When Jean reveals that he's in love, Des Grieux is dubious, and even more so when it turns out he's in love with the penniless Aurore, the ward of his friend Tiberge (a character in the novel who appears in no other operatic version that I know of).  So it seems hopeless, and the young lovers decide to off themselves, but Jean keeps rejecting Aurore's suggested suicide methods on the basis that they'd leave goofy-looking corpses (I'm not sure if this part is supposed to be macabre humor, but that's how it plays).  But then Des Grieux hears Aurore sing and thinks she sounds like Manon, causing him to immediately approve the match.  Tiberge then reveals that Aurore is actually the daughter of the late Lescaut, and therefore Manon's niece.  And there you have it.  The portrait itself doesn't figure very heavily into the plot.

First I should note that this is very obviously a lockdown project; it's done as a chamber opera with only piano accompaniment, which I don't love (but the only other performance I was able to find is similar; I wondered, was it just written this way?  But no; if you look at the score, you can see not).  Also, the four characters are very awkwardly partitioned into four parts of the stage for social-distancing purposes, which made it feel kind of disconnected.

But!  What do we think of the piece itself, if we're able to separate that from the particular performance?  Well...I found the novelty kind of entertaining, but as an actual drama it's pretty weird; the idea that Des Grieux would be okay with his nephew's marriage just because his future bride sounds like his dead lover is pretty warped in a way that I don't think was intended.  As for the music, eh...what can I say?  It's Massenet.  It's definitely unfair of me to judge it without hearing a fully orchestrated version, but I sort of doubt I'd be blown away.  Oh well, whatever, never mind.