Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | English | Pierre Doyen

Aigul Akhmetshina is outstanding in the title role, hearing Piotr Beczała is a privilege, but it's Damiano Michieletto's new staging that takes the honours.

The staging sways between tackiness and naivety, like those old Christmas cards with sequins glued to the edges of the figures.

Interesting ideas and a brilliant orchestral performance aren't enough to overcome a visually dull staging, predictable choreography and a lack of chemistry between the protagonists.

Love may well be a rebellious bird, but that's as nothing to maverick director Dmitri Tcherniakov, whose twisted staging for Festival d'Aix reimagines Bizet's opera as a radical therapy session.

A Manon as sexy and unsteady as its heroine.