The English National Ballet started their national tour of Manon at the Opera House in Manchester last night to an almost full house.
The story of Manon is an old favourite, which has been reimagined in many different ways over the centuries including in novel form, recitative and several operas including one by Jules Massenet. Indeed, it was the music of Massenet that, in 1974, helped inspire Kenneth Macmillan to create his own version of Manon as a ballet. In this version, MacMillan chose not to use any of the original music from Massenet’s opera Manon, but used music from his other works. The first performance in 1974 was welcomed warmly by the public with a standing ovation, but it was not received so well in the press. The hesitancy in the press to praise the ballet Manon was based mainly on the story and was not a critique of the performance. I must say that this was on my mind as I went to watch the opening night of the ENB tour.
Ballet has an incredible capacity to communicate emotion to an audience – but how on earth would I be brought to care for the tragic Manon? In short, I was not. In 1974 she was described as a “nasty little diamond digger” by the Morning Star and while this is a bit harsh (she isn’t particularly nasty) I couldn’t help but wonder why on earth am I watching a story about a young woman who is looking to marry into riches while stringing along a young admirer? It really isn’t a story that needs to be told and Manon does herself no favours – we simply have no reason to like her or sympathise for her sorry end.
So why, then, is this ballet so popular and so well received? It must be said that the choreography and the music – played sumptuously by the near 70 strong ENB Philharmonic Orchestra – combine to create a touching and entertaining performance. It sounded fantastic, it looked fantastic and, boy, did it move!
The opening scene took a while to get going – the characters were presented over time, as was to be expected, but once we knew who everyone was, the following scenes and acts pushed the narrative with a fast pace. The principles were all well cast, both from the point of view of their stature and of their talent – while ballet may often be concerned with stock characters (jester, villain, lovers etc) each of the principles brought depth and individuality to their character. It is really something else to follow the complexity of a story and development of individual characters through facial expression and movement alone and the ENB was very successful at this. Manon, debuted in the role by Alina Cojocarut, displayed the most change in character and variety of emotions through her performance and was entirely convincing. This must have been difficult as Manon is not an easy character to portray. I cannot comment on her dancing as expertly as I’d like to, but I would say that her performance was flawless with every piece perfectly and effortlessly delivered, particularly (and it is hard to single out a piece) her final scene with a quick succession of daring mid-air turns. Her pained love interest, Des Grieux, was performed by Joseph Caley, also his debut in that role. He was well cast and we couldn’t help but feel sorry for him throughout the performance as he was constantly rejected and then accepted by the teasing Manon. At times, though, he was difficult to notice in group scenes. His clothes were too similar to the other gentlemen and while this reinforced his position as one of the crowd, some small token element would have allowed us to follow him at ease in these scenes. Nevertheless, he certainly stood out when he danced and possibly more than any other character his choreography represented deep emotions such as his scene with the Gaoler in Act 3. Caley was able to show off quite clearly the combined elements of Macmillan’s traditional ballet choreography with some elements of modernism, particularly to underline these more complex emotions of fear, frustration and despair. Other principles who debuted their role last night were Jeffrey Ciriot as Lescaut, Katja Khaniukova as his mistress and Victor Prigent as the beggar chief. These, along with the more experienced members of the company – James Streeter as Monsieur GM, Jane Haworth as Madame and Fabian Reimair as the Gaoler – also presented flawless performances making a fantastic cast of principles that I am sure represented the best and finest performers around.
Some of the group pieces were simply breath-taking – the opening scene of Act 2, a party of sorts in Madame’s gambling den, was raucous and raised more than a few laughs from the audience. Apart from the comical sections, there was a wonderful part where Manon danced on the shoulders and arms of the admiring gentlemen and thus performed a large section completely off the ground. More than once, though, I felt that the ensemble did not synchronise well – even on the easier steps - and this was disappointing given the calibre of the English National Ballet, and also given the perfect performances from the principles.
The scenery and staging was both sumptuous and minimalist at the same time – Des Grieux’ apartment was represented solely by a baroque four poster bed and an ornate desk and chair – while there was not much on the stage at times, the detail in these was rich and impacting. The costumes were stunning and colourful and really added to the quality of the performance, realistically portraying the opulence of the wealthier in society and also the squalid lives of the poor beggars.
While I entered the Opera House bewildered as to why the story of Manon is still being told, still popular, I left completely enthralled by the spectacular entertainment – the dancing and the orchestra were the real story here.
Manon is on at the Opera House Manchester until October 20th and then travels to the Milton Keynes Theatre and later to the Mayflower Theatre.
Reviewer – Aaron Loughreyon - 17/10/18
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