Something quite new – for San Francisco audiences, at least – was on display Friday night at the War Memorial Opera House, as San Francisco Ballet opened its season with the company’s premiere of Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon. Arguably, it’s high time. Certainly Tamara Rojo, in her third year as artistic director of the San Francisco Ballet, is eager for audiences to become acquainted with this celebrated 20th century classic, a beloved staple of The Royal Ballet’s repertory.
Based on the 1731 novel, L’Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by Abbé Prévost, MacMillan’s 1974 ballet tells the tale of Manon, a young woman torn between love and the allure of wealth, and Des Grieux, a penniless student who falls in love with her. It’s set against the backdrop of 18th century Parisian opulence, and like most of MacMillan’s ballets, it delivers a penetrating psychological insight into the workings of the human condition. This production was staged by Robert Tewsley with additional principal coaching from Tamara Rojo and Julio Bocca, and incorporates Nicholas Georgiadis’ original scenic and costume design.
On Friday night, Max Cauthorn was utterly convincing as the poor but principled student who falls in love with Manon. Cauthorn’s an impressive dancer, with a purity and stillness behind his movements, augmented by impeccable technique. Smitten by Manon, his Des Grieux was human, vulnerable, suffused with longing for what he could not have. Jasmine Jimison was perfectly cast as Manon, youthful and beguiling, a young woman being sent off to a convent but with an eager eye for the finer (or more decadent) things in life. Difficult to discern by this staging is her familiarity with poverty, except for a battered purse she clutches that alludes to lack of money. Her biggest fear, apparently, is being poor – or, as MacMillan once explained it, it’s the shame in being poor that she fears.
This is a ballet chock-full of energetic pas de deux, one as satisfying as the next, as Des Grieux and Manon explore their newfound feelings. A favorite moment in Act 1 is when Manon, flush with the new emotions of being in love, takes a running leap back into the bed, sailing through the air like a little girl. But moments later her brother, the canny, scheming Lescaut (Cavan Conley), appears with the chilly, wealthy aristocrat, Monsieur GM (a deliciously sinister Myles Thatcher) in tow. The mood changes instantly; so does Manon, as she frets over what is being proposed to her, but not for long. There’s the quick understanding – for her and audience alike – that the one thing she craves beyond genuine love is wealth and privilege.
An ensuing pas de trois between Lescaut, Monsieur GM and Manon, where one man promenades her and the other moves her leg, was symbolically astute. The men make all the calls, the moves in her life. If she breaks from this, there will be consequences. Without a backward glance for the departed Des Grieux, Manon accepts the furs, the jewels, and leaves with the odious Monsieur GM.
Act 2 brings a party attended by courtesans and gentlemen, and a dollop of levity. Lescaut and his mistress (Frances Chung), nearly stole the show, first with Lescaut’s drunken solo – oh, those tour jetés that were so artfully unbalanced and awful, I was laughing out loud – followed by a wildly entertaining pas de deux with similar almost-disastrous movements and landings. Gravity returns with the arrival of Monsieur GM and a bejewelled Manon, witnessed by a pining Des Grieux, who pleads for her return. Manon rejects him but ultimately tells him the time will only be right for the two of them if he wins at playing cards, taking GM’s money. It ends poorly when he cheats, is caught, grabs the money and the two flee. Only they, too, are caught. Manon is arrested for charges of prostitution, jailed, then deported across the Atlantic.
A New Orleans penal colony is the setting for Act 3, where Nathaniel Remez, as the soulless Gaoler, charged with overseeing, fixes his eye on Manon from the moment of her arrival, even as Des Grieux (who’d lied to the authorities in order to remain with her) strives to protect her. It’s just a matter of time, we come to understand, because the Gaoler has all the power and Manon has nothing. She is half-dead from disease; all the ravaged-looking female convicts are. The group of them slog through a macabre dance, both compelling and awful to watch, making you want to turn away from their suffering. The Gaoler finally gets Manon alone, extorts a loathsome sex act from her and then, even more dehumanizing, holds her lunging body by one arm and one leg and swings her back and forth, his eyes glazed, almost bored. Even the music is calm and bucolic in a horror-film sort of way.
The closing pas de deux between Manon and Des Grieux manages to deliver a few final minutes of pure rapture. The energy and verve both Cauthorn and Jimison displayed, through leaps, turns, perfectly executed full body twists and dives, was wildly impressive.
Coupled with music by Jules Massenet (arranged and orchestrated by Martin Yates), with music director Martin West leading the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra, this production is unforgettable, stunning, a classic well worth seeing.
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