It was the Teatro Regio that opened the doors to Puccini’s rising star when in 1893 it staged the world premiere of his Manon Lescaut. The Tuscan-born composer was just thirty-two years old at the time, with two operas to his name that had received only lukewarm success. With this new opera, he was out to prove his worth, competing with one of the most successful opera composers of the time, Massenet, who in 1884 had composed a widely acclaimed work, inspired by the novel written one and half centuries earlier by the Abbé Prévost: Histoire du chevalier Des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut. A story that had thrilled generations of readers with its various episodes of a libertine flavour, and with its intriguing heroine, a villainous seductress who is oblivious to the harm she causes.

In Puccini’s hands, the story of Manon, an eighteenth-century femme fatale hopelessly in love with the student Des Grieux, but also with a life of luxury, becomes a compelling, fast-paced drama. One which unfolds through a succession of contrasting vignettes—from the idyll of their falling in love, amid the chorus of voices singing the praises of youth and love, to the sumptuous Parisian apartment where Manon, as Geronte’s mistress, lives the life of high society, to the bleak picture of the young woman in chains, sentenced to deportation to America for prostitution. Only the celebrated, ever-so poignant symphonic intermezzo gives a short respite before the tragic finale. Puccini wrote he felt the drama “as an Italian, with a desperate passion.” A passion that in the music to Des Grieux’s plea, “No! no!… pazzo son!” or Manon’s lament, “Sola… perduta, abbandonata,” he takes to truly heart-wrenching depths.