Davide Livermore’s production of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, performed and filmed at Barcelona’s Liceu in 2018 moves the setting of the piece from the 1700s to the 1880s and includes a spoken prologue (in English).  In the prologue the elderly Des Grieux is visiting Ellis Island just before its closure and is reminiscing.  The meaning of this will eventually become clear but what we get from the beginning is this elderly figure as a silent spectator to the action.  We may even be seeing the whole thing narrated as a flashback by Des Grieux.

Otherwise it starts conventionally enough apart from Manon and Geronte arriving in Amiens by train rather than carriage.  In all other respects Act 1 is by the book.  Act 2 shifts the action from Geronte’s house to a brothel (always a handy device for upping the eye candy) but is otherwise straightforward.  It does get a bit weird in Act 3 as we have to believe that Manon has been sentenced to emigrate to the United States.  That’s a horrible enough fate to be sure but surely one not available to French courts in the 1880s!  So she (and Des Grieux) arrive at Ellis Island where Manon promptly dies in a rather grim fever ward.  That’s probably more likely than dying of thirst in the Louisiana desert and it does allow Livermore to make use of some evocative Ellis Island themed videos by D-Wok.  Joking aside, it actually works pretty well and really doesn’t take too many liberties with the Abbé Prévost’s original.

The singing is excellent.  Ludmyla Monastyrska is Manon and has the kind of powerful, rich soprano coupled to a degree of agility that seems just right for Puccini.  Gregory Kunde, as Des Grieux, does some proper tenoring with ringing high notes and a particularly dramatic account of his big act 3 aria.  David Bižic is rock solid as Lescaut and everybody else is just fine.  Emmanuelle Villaume conducts and gets a suitably idiomatic sound; milking the overtly emotional moments like the Act 3 conclusion.

The video direction by Fabrice Castanier is straightforward and gets the job done backed up by the usual Blu-ray quality sound and picture.  The booklet has a track listing, a synopsis and a not very illuminating little essay.  Subtitle options are Italian, English, German, French, Spanish, Catalan, Korean and Japanese.

Manon Lescaut is not well served on video.  This is the only modern Blu-ray recording though there are two older DVD recordings available; both from Covent Garden.  The more recent features Kaufmann, Opolais and Maltman which sounds promising and then there’s the 1983 one with Domingo and Te Kanawa in their prime and Thomas Allen in a rare Puccini role as Lescaut.  If Opus Arte have cleaned it up from the previous rather low quality release it might be worth a look.

Catalogue information: C Major Blu-ray 766404