Riccardo Chailly conducts the original version of Puccini’s opera Manon Lescaut in Casa Ricordi’s new critical edition edited by Roger Parker. The opera will be performed at the Teatro dell’Opera in Leipzig from 9^th May (additional performances on 11^th, 14^th, 16^th, 18^th, 20^th, 24^th and 28^th May). As stage director, alongside the conductor Riccardo Chailly, will be Giancarlo Del Monaco, while the part of Manon will be sung alternately by Sondra Radvanowski and Francesca Patané.  Teddy Rhodes will sing Lescaut and  Alexandrs Antonenko will be Des Grieux.

Manon Lescaut – an “experimental” work, in terms of Puccini’s development as a composer – exists in many “versions”, with a series of substantial revisions that involved the rewriting of numerous passages and the elimination of entire sections of music. Further alterations to the original score were due to Toscanini who, in conducting various productions of Manon at the Scala, took the personal initiative of paring down the orchestration and lightening the dynamics in many passages so as to render more balanced the relationship between orchestra and voice. In fact, in its original conception the orchestration of Manon was denser, indeed, in certain passages considerably intense.

In the new critical version edited by Roger Parker, the score will respect the final version approved by Puccini in his lifetime, but it will also include a large number of alternative passages with which performers will be able to reconstruct the earlier versions of the opera approved by the composer. For the performance scheduled in Leipzig Riccardo Chailly has chosen to present a reconstruction of Manon in its first version, the one heard in Turin in 1893. The most obvious difference in this version is found in the finale of the first act, which after the initial performances was completely rewritten. In its original form the finale was based on a reprise of the tenor aria “Donna non vidi mai”and as such requires a much more emphatic participation on the part of the chorus. Other differences are found in Manon’s aria “Sola, perduta, abbandonata” in the fourth act – longer than the version that we are familiar with – and in her subsequent duet with Des Grieux. This “original version” will allow today’s listeners to appreciate the nature of the “composition priorities” that the young Puccini had at this point in his career, when he was breaking away from the influence of the models of his great predecessors.

The opera will be performed at the Teatro dell’Opera in Leipzig from 9^th May. As stage director, alongside the conductor Riccardo Chailly, will be Giancarlo Del Monaco, while the part of Manon will be sung alternately by Sondra Radvanowski and Francesca Patané.  Teddy Rhodes will sing Lescaut and  Alexandrs Antonenko will be Des Grieux.