Empire Theatre, Eden Court, Inverness, 5 June 2009

Anne-Sophie Duprels as Manon (photo - Mark Robertson)

I WENT to bed the other night with a haunting little tune going through my mind, diddle iddle ee da dee pom pom, and it was still there in the morning. It wasn’t a musical cup of black coffee; I slept perfectly, on a cloud of euphoria after being one of the modest audience to relish the new Scottish Opera production of Manon, by the French composer Jules Massenet.

If I had to sum up this version of Manon briefly, I would say it was lavish and awash with dramatic metaphors. The costumes, designed by the Canadian André Barbe, were a pure reflection of the fashionable nobility of pre-Revolution France. His design for the set was also a pure reflection, but here was a huge broken mirror with a golden tinge, as though inviting the cast to see themselves in all their extravagance, frippery and facileness, and yet all the time there was the foreboding of doom.

For most of a decade Barbe has been working in partnership with his fellow Canadian Renaud Doucet, a director and choreographer with a background in dance. No prizes then for realising that all the stage movements of the whole cast had been calculated to the finest detail, or why a sextet of baroque dancers were brought in for the spectacle of the scene in the Cours la Reine.

It was customary for a ballet to be included in 19th century productions at the Paris Opera, but Doucet chose the more correct baroque style of dance that was seen a hundred years earlier. Making up the Canadian triumvirate was lighting designer Guy Simard, responsible for the golden wash over the whole production, and doubtless also for the rather annoying spotlight that reflected off the mirrored backdrop into certain seats in the auditorium.

We first see Manon in a giant picture frame, portrayed as an innocent country maid, while the Orchestra of Scottish Opera are playing the prelude under the baton of their new Music Director, Francesco Corti, making his Inverness debut, and giving us a foretaste of the wonderful melodies to come.

The story of Manon is taken straight from the novel by the Abbé Prévost, L’histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut, and like all opera has a hugely complicated plot full of hard to believe twists and turns. The fifteen-year-old Manon arrives by coach in Arras on her way to a convent where her worldly instincts are to be subdued. She is under the care of her cousin, who is easily distracted to go gambling, leaving Manon in the sights of Guillot de Morfontaine, a nobleman roué and his companion De Bretigny who are entertaining a trio of actresses (I said there were quite a few metaphors).

De Morfontaine sees his chance and offers Manon the use of his coach while he finishes his business with the actresses. Enter the young Chevalier des Grieux who takes one look at Manon, they fall in love, escape to Paris in the borrowed coach and set up home together. Then it all gets really believable!

Des Grieux is kidnapped by his father, and trains to go into the church. Manon shows her true colours and gets cared for by a succession of rich noblemen, who are a lot less rich by the time she has finished. Then she seduces Des Grieux from going into the church, gets through his inheritance and takes him to a gaming house to try and win some more money.

This he succeeds in doing, at the expense of de Morfontaine, who gets his revenge on the couple by getting them arrested, him for cheating at cards and her for prostitution. He is released; she gets banished for life to the colonies. Des Grieux manages to get the guard to release Manon from the chain-gang on the road to Le Havre and exile, but she is totally exhausted and dies in his arms.

It’s not so very long ago that opera singers were expected just to stand there and sing; now they have to be able to act as well. And act well they did. In the title role the petite French singer, Anne Sophie Dupreis, showed a delightful warm rich soprano voice, and played the part with appropriate coquettishness.

The young Des Grieux was Liverpudlian Paul Charles Clark, a fine tenor with the right amount of naivety. Inevitably the biggest cheer went to Harry Nicoll as Guillot de Morfontaine, back before his home audience, playing the part to the hilt, the picture of snooty elegance in satins, silks and feathered hats, and obviously loving every minute of it.

But with the numbers involved, a chorus and a corps of dancers as well as a several smaller roles, this was very much an ensemble production and everyone deserves a share of the praise for a memorable evening. And we must not forget the artists of the wardrobe department responsible for the huge range of the most lavish and ornate costumes that Scottish Opera have ever put on a stage.

Manon is described as an opera comique, but I must end with a very serious question. What is it about Inverness opera-goers that makes them so reluctant to experience spectacularly good works with which they are not familiar? On previous visits to the Highlands by Scottish Opera the audiences for Cimarosa’s The Secret Marriage, Judith Weir’s A Night at the Chinese Opera and Verdi’s Falstaff were disappointing, to say the least.

Yet all three were highly entertaining and were first class performances. Ticket sales for Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte this week were respectable, and it was the third production that Scottish Opera had brought to the Highland capital in recent years. I’m not complaining about that, as this David McVicar production was as good as any I’ve seen anywhere, but I am complaining about the lack of adventure shown by the Inverness audience.

Scottish Opera are back at Eden Court in November with two operas new to Inverness, Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love and Rossini’s The Italian Girl in Algiers. Both are great fun and I promise that you will not be disappointed with either of them. After that, in May 2010, only one opera is being staged here, Puccini’s La Bohème, yet again. The message is clear. Unless you want a diet of operatic pot-boilers then you need to come out of your corners and try something unfamiliar.

© James Munro, 2009

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