Manon Lescaut
Opera by Giacomo Puccini
Duration: 2 hours 30 minutes, including an interval.
Language: In German with German and English surtitles.
Further information: Introduction to the work 45 minutes before each performance.
With «Manon Lescaut», Giacomo Puccini established the series of tragic female characters in his operas whose lives combine passionate devotion with existential despair. In four sweeping, cinematically constructed scenes, he traces the stages of the title character’s life: her intoxicating love for the student Des Grieux, a life of luxury in Parisian high society, and finally her exile and death in an American desert.
Director Barrie Kosky emphasises the fleeting nature of this existence by presenting the story as a continuous, feverish journey: death is already sitting in the driver's seat of the carriage when Manon and Des Grieux first meet.
Following her acclaimed Tosca, soprano Sonya Yoncheva returns to Zurich Opera House as Manon.
