Manon's Choice
| Autor: | Laura Protano-Biggs |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2008 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | The Opera Quarterly. 24:27-35 |
| ISSN: | 1476-2870 0736-0053 |
| DOI: | 10.1093/oq/kbp012 |
| Popis: | In what is recognized as one of the most ingenious concertato finales of the fin de siecle, the heroine of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, denounced for sexual misdemeanors, queues with other wanton women but then walks alone from the prison that houses her to an even more inimical enclosure: a vessel that will deport her to Louisiana. As the curtains open on the third act, these structures impose themselves on an otherwise bare and dim square at Le Havre, concealing the open waters behind. Bit by bit, the scene is lit to simulate dawn, until a roll call is announced and a crowd amasses which soldiers press into the square’s recesses. The women are mute, but their bodies are articulate: the contemporary staging manual that accompanied the first performance, the so-called disposizione scenica, instructs that as their names are called, Elisa “modestamente e tranquillamente va al suo posto” (modestly and calmly takes up her place); that the lascivious Giorgetta “da una occhiata provocante al Sergente” (winks provocatively at the Sergeant) while Regina passes “pavoneggiandosi con civetteria” (strutting flirtatiously). Amongst them a woman called Violetta slips by, reincarnated from the midcentury and Verdi’s La traviata. This tense pantomime, with its constant contention between crowd and soldiers, is an artful distraction from the collective sentiment that characterizes the musical style of this concertato. For the disposizione scenica further indicates: “Il Sergente ha in mano un foglio di carta: il Comandante ha un piccolo libro, sul quale, dopo esaminate le condannate, che passano, prende alcune annotazioni. . . . Di mano in mano che passano, il Coro fa i propri commenti, sia ridendo, sia segnandole a dito” (The Sergeant holds a piece of paper in his hand: the Commander has a notebook in which, having examined the prisoners who pass by, he makes some notes. . . . As the women gradually pass by, the Chorus make their own remarks, whether laughing or pointing) (18). The crowd’s outstretched arms mark a firm separation between spectators and the criminalized women, the slim distance between pointed fingers and target proclaiming their detachment from the women. Across this distance a collective phenomenon is, in |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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