Manon

Manon is an opera in five acts by Jules Massenet, which only Charles Gounod’s Faust and Georges Bizet’s Carmen have outdone at the box office. Its libretto, based upon the abbé Prevost’s Manon Lascaut (1731), was written by Philippe Gilles and Henri Meilhac. The librettists’ decision to use a mixture of sung and spoken lines in this composition predestined it for production at the Opéra-Comique, where it had its world premiere on 19 January 1884. Manon entered the interntional repertory almost…