Auber was the first opera-composer to be attracted by the AbbÉ PrÉvost's famous romance Manon Lescaut. It is one of those vivid stories of love and passion which have ever made an appeal to those in search of a theme for musical expression. As drama it has a very close connection with life in general, and its human interest has that full flesh-and-blood quality which gives it a certain quick vitality. Sad and sordid it may be; but the story of the wayward Manon, as fascinating a black sheep as ever graced the pages of fiction—or history—is one which is likely to remain in the common stock of tales which provides novelists with material for practically all time.

The chief romances of the AbbÉ are the MÉmoires d'un Homme de QualitÉ, Cleveland, and Doyen de Killerine (the two latter, by the way, books which show the result of his sojourn in England). While these exhibit certain well-marked qualities, they are completely cast into the shade by Manon Lescaut, his masterpiece, and one of the greatest novels of the eighteenth century, while, from its characterisation, it may be pointed to as the father of the modern novel. The Chevalier des Grieux is an embodiment of the saying "Love first and the rest nowhere," and it is curious that the AbbÉ made a French translation of Dryden's once famous play on the same theme, All for Love. Manon, as a creation, is a triumph, one of the most remarkable heroines in fiction, springing red-hot as it were from the imagination of the wandering scholar who brought her into existence. It is all the more extraordinary that the novel which at once makes an appeal by its interest and sincerity, but which repays study as a work of art, should have been a sort of appendix to his first work.

Some years after Auber's opera had been laid on the shelf—it never attained to any great popularity—Massenet, a notable "modern" French composer, found by means of its story the expression of quite the best that was in him. Since Carmen modern French opera has no such masterpiece of its kind to show. Massenet's Manon was produced in 1884, and in the fulness of time Puccini turned to the same story, and after planning his own scenario, commissioned Domenico Oliva—dramatic critic of the Journal d'Italia of Rome, and author of a play Robespierre which had attained no little success—to write the "book." This was afterwards so drastically altered and remodelled by Puccini, in consultation with Ricordi, the publisher, that in justice to Oliva, his name as the author of the libretto was removed from the published score.

It was produced in 1893 at the Regio Theatre, Turin, on the 1st of February, conducted by Alexander PomÉ, and cast as follows:

For a new work by a composer whose reputation at that time, much to the wonderment of native judges and musicians, had not traversed beyond Italy, its production in England was remarkably quick. It was given the next year, on May 14, 1894, at Covent Garden with the following cast, comprising a special company of Italian singers brought together by Messrs. Ricordi, of which the exceptionally fresh chorus appears to have been the chief point of excellence:

and A. Seppilli was the conductor. The occasion was interesting in more than one way. The season under Sir Augustus Harris began on the very unusual day—a Whit-Monday. The opera house had been renovated entirely and re-upholstered, with new seats and curtains, and glittered fresh in all the glories of paint and gilding. Tradition has it that this was the only time in forty years—since the building of the present house in fact—had a broom ever been known to go into every corner. Yet another point makes this opening of the season memorable. It began with this new opera of Puccini's, and then gave Verdi's Falstaff the same week. Without making an "odious" comparison it is obvious that reference should be made to Massenet's work and the differences between that and Puccini's opera briefly touched upon.

In both versions certain departures are made, so far as the story goes, from the original tale. Let us first examine Massenet's book. This opens in the courtyard of an inn at Amiens to which Lescaut, a soldier who is evidently given to loose living, brings his pretty little sister Manon en route for the convent school to which she is destined. She meets with the handsome Chevalier des Grieux, and easily falls in love with him. The quiet life of schoolroom and convent does not make a very strong appeal to the high-spirited girl, and she very quickly decides to run away to Paris, and give her brother the slip. At first honourable intentions as to the pretty and confiding Manon's future seem to weigh with the lover, but in the second act we find them installed in the customary mÉnage À deux, Des Grieux's father having declined to give his consent to a marriage. Thus almost at the beginning Fate seems to be against Manon, and she accepts only too easily the situation and—drifts. Des Grieux's "sinews of war" being anything but opulent, it is easy to understand why the offers of the aristocrat De Bretigny are too tempting for Manon to refuse. To him she transfers her affections, and we next see her established at Cours-la-Reine, the fÊted and admired mistress of Bretigny. But during the ball she hears that her former lover has renounced the world with its pomps and vanities and is preparing to take orders. With that instinct known as the truly feminine, Manon immediately makes up her mind that she wants Des Grieux back again; and after a strenuous scene at the seminary of S. Sulpice we find, in the third act, that Des Grieux has thrown his good resolutions to the winds and is again with his charmer. Manon by this time has become rather more than a fragile butterfly from whose wings the bloom has been brushed. She is now running a gambling den, with the help, apparently, of one of her numerous admirers. Des Grieux and this person come to loggerheads, and the latter informs the police of the nature of the gaming house, and Manon is ignominiously dragged off to the lock-up. The last scene shows us Manon being taken by road to Havre, from whence she is to be shipped, in company with other undesirables, to the New Continent. Des Grieux sees her, and begs the warder to allow him an interview. Worn out by remorse and weakened by her former life, Manon, now reduced to the last stage of infirmity, dies peacefully in her lover's arms.

Puccini's librettists follow a different plan, and the Manon of the Italian composer is a species of impressionistic scenes more or less loosely strung together, which, while they demand perhaps a knowledge of the story for their full appreciation—and to opera goers the story is, of course, quite familiar—exhibit that quality of conjuring up the atmosphere not so much of the actual place and characters, but of the spirit which underlies the pathetic tragedy. In short, Puccini's Manon—music and story, for it is impossible to separate them—exhibits that skilful picturing of the theme which is even more apparent in the subsequent work, La BohÈme.

In Puccini's opera we find after the meeting of Manon and Des Grieux at the inn at Amiens that the gay young lady is installed as the mistress of Geronte, and rather less stress, perhaps, is laid on the part her rascally brother plays in the transaction. By giving the final scene in America, whither Des Grieux follows the ruined girl, Puccini's librettists follow the Abbe's original story rather more closely. Other actual differences will be noted by following the plan, as in the previous chapters, of giving a more or less detailed story of the opera, with plot and music side-by-side.

Puccini begins his Manon with a short, bustling, vivacious prelude which continues for some twenty bars or so after the rise of the curtain, which discloses, as in Massenet's first act, the exterior of an inn at Amiens, with a crowd of citizens, students and girls, strolling about the square and the avenue. One of the students, Edmund, sings of the beautiful night dear to lovers and poets, and the band of his merry companions cut his vapourings short with laughter and jest. Presently the work-girls come down, and Edmund sings to two of them a graceful, lively fantasy of youth and love, which is afterwards taken up by the chorus of students. In characteristic fashion, the citizens join in, and we get one of those solidly written but vivacious choruses, a form which Puccini handles so well and dexterously, with similar splendour of technic to the immortal Leipsic Cantor, keeping each part clear and effective. Des Grieux comes on and laughingly asks some of the girls whether among them is to be found the one his heart dreams of. The chorus continues in its gay spirit of song, dance and laughter until the sound of a postillion's horn calls their attention to the arrival of the coach from Arras. An orchestral passage repeating the brisk theme of the opening prelude leads up to the entry of the diligence, from which Lescaut and Geronte di Lavoir descend, the latter assisting Manon to alight. While the travellers give their orders to the landlord, Des Grieux catches sight of Manon, and is attracted by her face and figure. The crowd has dispersed and the students settle down to cards, and then Des Grieux speaks to the girl. In a pretty little musical dialogue, which Puccini always expresses so dramatically and with a sort of naturalness that may be called colloquial, the pair make each other's acquaintance, and, like the conventional action of writing of letters on the stage, the result is arrived at in the twinkling of an eye. Manon is called off by her brother's voice, and Des Grieux has his first love song, a tender impassioned melody full of great charm and lyrical strength. Edmund and the other students then chaff him as to the fair charmer good fortune has sent him, and Des Grieux makes his escape to think over his conquest. Another typical number, a duet in chorus between the students and the girls in a quick valse time, is broken by the arrival of Geronte and the brother, from whose dialogue we learn the sister is destined for a convent, and that the brother is not at all sorry to be quit of his responsibility in the matter of looking after her. Geronte di Lavoir, the elderly and lecherous nobleman, appears to be a chance acquaintance, who has met with Lescaut and his sister while travelling in the coach. The carelessness of Lescaut and his evidently mercenary nature fits in only too readily with Geronte's desires, for he is immediately attracted to the artless little girl from the country and lays his evil plans. Darkness falls on the scene. Lescaut is attracted to the card-players, and joins them quickly in the hopes of adding to his store of wealth, and Geronte bargains with the innkeeper for a post-chaise and some swift horses, giving instructions that a lady will want to pop off very quickly to Paris in a short time. Edmund overhears this little plot, and discloses it to his friend Des Grieux. A short characteristic orchestral passage with a changing unrestful rhythm leads up to Manon's entrance. With a naÏvetÉ expressed in the music she sings, she comes to Des Grieux and tells him that she has kept her thoughtless promise. In a beautifully phrased impassioned passage Des Grieux urgently presses his suit. Manon, who continues to hang back a little, is overcome, and when an interruption from her brother, on whom the effects of wine is beginning to tell, startles them out of their ecstatic rapture, she attempts to return to the inn. But Des Grieux takes her away, and tells her of the plot of the old reprobate to abduct her, and urges her to escape with himself.

Edmund now tells Geronte of the escape of his prize, and that disappointed old rouÉ tries to rouse the brother from his lethargy. Lescaut decides that pursuit is worthless, and suggests following the pair to Paris, whither he is sure they have gone. Geronte stifles his fury and goes in to supper, while the students join in with a merry chorus, laughing at the old man's discomfiture as the act ends.

A few bars of a light tripping measure against a slight accompaniment of pizzicato chords from the strings opens the second act, the scene of which shows Manon installed in Geronte's luxurious house in Paris. Manon's toilette is being finished off by the perruquier, and the detached remarks and inquiries for the various articles necessary are musically "popped in" with a skilful hand. The brother comes in, and while the finishing process is still proceeding, he congratulates his sister on the transference of her affections from the penniless Des Grieux to the rich old nobleman. Manon, however, is by no means "off" with the old love, and in a tender little melody she sings of the humble dwelling where she and her lover passed a blissful time. Like so many of Puccini's melodies it begins by a reiteration of a single note, which gradually spreads itself into a lyrical flow. This works up into an expressive little duet, in which Manon longs for Des Grieux's return, and Lescaut promises to make him a successful gamester in order to gather in the necessary funds.

Some singers now arrive, and Manon explains that Geronte is a composer, and likes to air his art for her delectation. A mezzo soprano then begins a tuneful madrigal of a pastoral character, pleasantly melodious but which hardly gives the idea, in full, of a certain stilted artificiality which is the peculiar flavour of the period. The other female voices join in a three-part chorus. Manon is rather bored with their music, and directs her brother to give them some money to get rid of them. The brother then departs to find Des Grieux, and Geronte and his friends arrive to a dainty little orchestral measure of the character of a minuet, with its fanciful little trills and twirls, but with its syncopated bass to preserve the idea of movement and progress. The dancing-master gives some hints in deportment to Manon, and the chorus of AbbÉs and other friends of Geronte's murmur their admiration at her graces. In a spirited little number Manon, who has politely told the company not to interrupt her lesson, sings to Geronte of the pleasure she is experiencing in her present life, and with characteristic skill the chorus is worked into the scheme as part of the musical fabric, and not merely as a decorative background.

After the departure of Geronte and his guests, Des Grieux, who has been told of Manon's whereabouts by the brother, comes in. The scene between them is musically full of emotional force, Des Grieux expressing his loneliness and despair at Manon's flight, while Manon deplores her weakness and assures him of her love in spite of all that the present situation entails. The highly dramatic duet works up to a fine intensity, and at the end their voices blend in a clever climax of a kind—a few strenuous reiterated notes in unison taking an upward leap at the finish—so characteristic of the composer. Their happiness is short lived, for Geronte comes in and puts them to confusion. After cajoling him into something like sweet reasonableness, Manon thinks the little affair will blow over. But her truly feminine desire for a compromise, a gentle slipping over of things, is not to be fulfilled. Des Grieux, when they are once more alone, tells Manon that her present life is impossible, that she must give it all up and fly with him. He has a fine broad melody when Manon tries to return to her plan of letting things go on as they are. Manon is moved by his intensity, and begs once again for forgiveness, and agrees to wholly give her heart to him. Lescaut now rushes in breathless to acquaint Des Grieux and his sister that Geronte has put the police on their track. The scene works up into a clever trio of quick movement, Manon imperilling herself and her companion by her desire to carry off as much spoil as she can lay hands on. Geronte, attended by a sergeant and two men, block the entrance, and Manon in her surprise and agitation drops her cloak, and the jewels roll to the floor. With this effective finish—Manon being arrested, as we may suppose, in this instance for larceny, and the grimness of the situation intensified by the rascally brother's double-dealing in the matter being hinted at—the act closes, Des Grieux being held back from rescuing his beloved, and uttering a cry of despair.

Before the third act comes a characteristic orchestral interlude, in which the Wagnerian plan of continuing the story by means of a symphonic tone poem is employed with individuality by Puccini. This intermezzo deals with two main ideas or phases, first the imprisonment of Manon, and secondly the sad journey to Havre, the port whence the filles de joie—how intensely sad is the irony of the description!—are to be taken over seas. To the score is appended a quotation from the AbbÉ PrÉvost's story, giving the clue to the strain of passion that comes in the music of this number, and blends skilfully with the sadness and the sense of movement which are its leading flavours, so to speak.

Des Grieux says in the story, "How I love her! My passion is so ardent that I feel I am the most unhappy creature alive. What have I not tried in Paris to obtain her release. I have implored the aid of the powerful. I have knocked at every door as a suppliant. I have even resorted to force. All has been in vain. Only one thing remains for me, and that is to follow her—go where she may—even unto the end of the world."

The scene of the third act shows the square near the harbour at Havre, with the sea and a ship in the distance. To the left is the barracks serving as a temporary prison, and at the gate a sentinel keeps guard. Des Grieux and the brother have evidently been keeping their vigil all through the night, and dawn is about to break. Very poignant and striking is the fevered agitation shown in the dialogue passages which open the scene. The brother has done his best to arrange for a rescue when his unhappy sister shall be brought forth and marched on board. The sentinel who now comes on duty has been bribed, and Des Grieux is able to hold a conversation with Manon through the barred window. As the night passes into day, the all too short interview ends, and Des Grieux gives some final instructions to Manon. But the plans for the rescue fail, and Lescaut comes back to tell Des Grieux of their failure as the clamour of citizens and soldiers is heard. After a spirited snatch of chorus, the roll on the drums gives the signal for the gate of the barracks to open, out of which the women, in chains, pass out to the ship. The chorus in some telling little abrupt phrases pass remarks as the various names are read out, and the vivacious comments and rough laughter heighten the effect of sadness as Manon and Des Grieux snatch their last farewell. Manon hangs behind a little, only to be roughly pushed on by a sergeant. Then it is that Des Grieux's despair gets the upper hand. "Kill me," he cries, "or take me along with you as your meanest servant." The captain is touched by his devotion, and in the bluff, good-natured fashion of the sailor, agrees to take Des Grieux.

In the fourth act the death of Manon puts an end to this sad but very human tragedy. The music is one long duet, full of the highest emotional expression, and musically reaches to the highest heights of pure tragedy. The scene shows us a desolate dreary plain on the outskirts of New Orleans. Manon and Des Grieux by their dress and manner show the destitution of their circumstances. "Lean all your weight on me, love," murmurs Des Grieux, as he supports his companion, worn out by fatigue and privation. Manon suffers from thirst, and Des Grieux, who can find no water in this arid waste, goes out to search farther afield. Memories of the life that is past now come to torture poor Manon, and when Des Grieux comes in again he finds her hopelessly distraught and at the point of death. Very touchingly does the music Manon sings picture the ebbing life, the faltering breath, the approach of the end; and, with a long, low phrase on one note, Manon, whose last words are that her love for Des Grieux will never pass although her sins will be cleansed away, sinks peacefully in her long last sleep. Bursting into tears Des Grieux falls senseless over her body.

It is inevitable to return to a comparison between this work of Puccini's and that of Massenet. Massenet remains supreme in his own place from the delicate and spirited characterisation of his music. His Manon is essentially French, entirely of the eighteenth century, bringing out in the music all the artificiality, all the airs and graces. While the story is not without flesh and blood, it remains as a thing apart, moving in its own sphere, full of its own special atmosphere. Puccini takes the same French story and gives us a moving lyric drama, which is on a far broader plane, is essentially human and common to every place, every race and all time, since it deals with purely elemental passions.

Since Manon was the work by which Puccini's operatic music was first given to the English music-lovers, the following extracts from the critiques which appeared after its first performance in England will be of interest.

There is nothing which brings back the past so vividly as the fascinating process of turning up back files of daily papers. The actual day and all the "common round" come back like a living thing; so many of the "trivial tasks" seem to assume quite a special importance of their own. To read the advertisements, the announcements of concerts, theatres and picture galleries, is to remember events and pleasant moments which have long passed out of one's mind. Speaking as a journalist, the astonishing thing to me is that the daily paper of twelve years ago or so should seem such an old-fashioned thing to look at. One does not feel this with regard to the journals of a far more remote age. It is only these few recent years that seem to have rushed along at such a fearful pace.

The Morning Post calls attention to the enterprise shown by producing a new work on the opening night of the season and promising another—Verdi's Falstaff to wit—within the first week.

Mr. Arthur Hervey, its critic, says: "Now that Italian composers have once more come to the fore we may expect to be well provided with operas from the quondam land of song, and now the home par excellence of the melodramatic opera. Mascagni and Leoncavallo having been duly welcomed, it is now the turn of Puccini, the much applauded author of Manon Lescaut." After pointing out the differences in the two books, he says that they offer the same amount of similarity the one to the other as do those of Gounod's Faust and BoÏto's Mefistofele. "The seeds of Wagnerian reform have not fallen on barren ground. Puccini reveals himself in Manon as a composer gifted with strong dramatic power, possessing an apparently innate feeling for stage effect and considerable melodic expression. His score is exempt from the crudities and vulgarities from which certain modern Italian operas are not free. The entire first act is treated with a wonderful lightness of touch. In the grand duet between Manon and Des Grieux in the second act, the composer has fully risen to the height of the situation. His music is full of melody and passion. It ends in a decidedly Wagnerian fashion which evokes recollections of Tristan und Isolde. We have only singled out a few salient features in a work that is remarkable from many points of view, not the least of which is its sincerity of purpose, and we cordially congratulate the composer upon having made so successful a debut amongst us."

In contrast to the Times critic, the writer says: "The inevitable intermezzo separates the second from the third act. It reproduces some of the motives heard in the above-named duet, and is extremely effective."

In the Academy of May 19, 1894, Mr. J.S. Shedlock writes: "The composer has really something to say, and has said it to very great, though not the best, advantage. At present he is too strongly influenced by Wagner and by others to display his full individuality. The influence of Wagner is specially marked not so much in the use of representative themes as in phrases and melodies which recall Die Meistersinger, Tristan, and Siegfried. As, for example, the music in the first act, when Manon descends from the coach, or the opening of the intermezzo.... Of the four acts, the second and fourth appear to us the strongest ... the love duet between Manon and Des Grieux is a masterpiece of concentration and gradation, the fine broad phrase at the close, afterwards heard with imposing effect at the end of the third act and with tender expression in the fourth, ought alone to ensure the success of the work.... Of course, in a modern opera an intermezzo is indispensable. Puccini, however, gives to his distinct dramatic meaning: the coda with its orchestration is original and expressive."

The Times said of Manon, on May 15, 1894, that in melodic structure and general cast of its phraseology the new work has many points of affinity with the most popular productions of the young Italian school; but it is far above these in workmanship, in the reality of its sentiment, and, above all, in the atmosphere. It supposes that Puccini is the author of his own book, and on the whole prefers Massenet's libretto, and points out that the climax of the piece, musically, if not dramatically, is the penultimate scene, outside the prison at Havre. The finale to this scene in which occur the comments of the crowd on the prisoners, some of whom are covered with confusion, while others are jauntily defiant, is hailed as the finest number in the work. The weakest thing in the opera is, according to this critic, the intermezzo, but an atonement is made by the opening of the third act. The work, he concludes, amply deserved the very enthusiastic reception it obtained. Even at this short distance of time it is something of a curiosity to read that the National Anthem was sung, under Signor Mancinelli's direction, at the beginning of the evening by the choristers grouped round a bust of the Queen.