Manon Lescaut is one of the world’s great love stories. It is a tragic tale of a beguiling young woman, torn between true love and a desire for wealth, who discovers she can’t have both. A young student, Des Grieux, meets the beautiful, but capricious, Manon. They fall in love and he saves her from abduction by a rich old roué. But Manon cannot resist the lure of wealth and later allows herself to be seduced by the old man. Before long, however, she is bored, and when Des Grieux appears, her love is reignited. When the old man catches them together, Manon is arrested and deported to Louisiana. The compassionate ship’s captain allows Des Grieux to go with her, and she dies in his arms in the desert.
Fidelio
“Those in search of a thoroughly teutonic Fidelio should speed to The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. It moves swiftly and surely, is powerfully cast and is conducted with fine muscular authority by Christoph von Dohnányi,” wrote The Times of this production by Adolf Dresen, which starred Gabriela Benacková and Josef Protschka. Designed in an austere but traditional style by Margit Bardy, it conveys Beethoven’s theme – the triumph of love and freedom over the forces of evil and oppression – with a natural, unadorned simplicity.