First impressions are important, but they shouldn't lead to snap judgment. It is usually wiser to stop and think, but in the world of opera – especially Puccini – lovers tend to fall in love at first ...

On the minus side, any contemporary rendering of a slight-ish melodrama adapted from Abbé Prévost’s 1731 novel goes against the grain of the depicted attempts to send our pleasure-loving young heroine ...

Manon Lescaut is an opera in four acts by Giacomo Puccini. The story is based on the 1731 novel L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost and should not be confused ...

The Washington National Opera’s brilliant revival of “Manon Lescaut” demonstrates that as early as 1893, when Giacomo Puccini was writing this, his first popular work, he knew well how to use music to ...

Kristine Opolais in Act 2 of ‘Manon Lescaut’ (all photos by Ken Howard, courtesy Metropolitan Opera) (click to enlarge) The Met’s new production of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, directed by Richard Eyre, ...

Manon Lescaut is an opera in four acts by Giacomo Puccini. The story is based on the 1731 novel L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost. The libretto is in Italian, ...

Giacomo Puccini was right on time. With Italy’s greatest opera composer, Giuseppe Verdi, in the twilight of his career, it appeared the country’s status as an operatic epicenter might end with the ...

The siren of song, Manon Lescaut, sung by soprano Kristine Opolais, takes the big screen this Saturday. Imagine a female literary character so seductive, so irresistible that not one but four operas ...

NEW YORK—The Metropolitan Opera’s new production of “Manon Lescaut” ran into a potential snag when tenor Jonas Kaufmann canceled for health reasons. Fortunately, tenor star Roberto Alagna stepped in ...

From the Met’s new Manon Lescaut. Photo: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera The beauty of certain sturdy operas is that they can survive just about any directorial manhandling if the singing is good enough ...