You know the common declaration that the book was better than the movie. Almost nobody acknowledges the reality that a movie can cover no more than 20 pages of a novel, or so I’ve heard – basing it on a short story would be much more fitting. (Who’s counting, anyway? A lot of a movie script involves fleshing out details. Say for five pages here, five pages there, five more for the finale. You get the idea.) There’s also the problem that cinema presents surfaces, while fiction can delve into individuals’ perceptions, reflections, and emotions in ways that even a first-person narrator cannot equally convey. Falling back on a voiceover, from a critical point of view, usually reflects a shortcoming in the movie itself. Perhaps you’ll come up with exceptions, and I’m open to argument. The point is, a filmscript has to discard a lot to fit into an acceptable running time for commercial release.
All that got stirred up after hearing a broadcast of Puccini’s 1884 opera Manon Lescaut, a retelling of Massenet’s once popular 1874 opera Manon, which still gets performed, unlike Auber’s largely forgotten 1856 version.
Usually, the discussion involves comparisons between Puccini and Massenet’s works, which I’ll touch on later, but this time I picked up on a clue from Sir Denis Forman’s “irreverent guide to the plots, the singers, the composers, the recordings” A Night at the Opera, a go-to book I’ll highly recommend. Manon is not one of Puccini’s blockbuster hits, something Sir Denis dismisses as “rather a dim little affair. It is made up of scenes from the Abbe Prevost’s long novel and whole chunks of the narrative take place between acts. This is dramatically inept because we lose any sense of continuity in Manon’s downward spiral and the agony does not pile on as it should.” OK, so my lack of enthusiasm for this work isn’t my fault, even though there are dramatic high points throughout, as Sir Denis cites.
He really grabbed my attention when he proclaimed, “The libretto is not good. Puccini’s Manon has a worse script than Auber’s, a much worse one than Massenet’s, and all three fail to mobilize the original Prevost’s story, which is full of good stuff and could make a rattling good television series today.”
That was good enough to send me down the rabbit hole. The novel in question is Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut, the seventh and last volume of the Memoirs and Adventures of a Quality Man Who Retired from the World. First published in 1731, the novel was deemed scandalous in 1733 and 1735, seized and condemned to be burned, ultimately leading Prevost to revise and republish it in 1753, with an important episode added.
The operas – and I presume the stage and movie adaptations, too – all focus on the beautiful young woman in question, Manon Lescaut – but quickly diminish the storyteller, the young Chevalier des Grieux. The action begins when she’s being conveyed by coach on her way from school to a convent, accompanied by her brother, Lescaut. When they stop at an inn for the night, the normally shy des Grieux sees her, is stunned by her beauty, somehow strikes up a conversation, and immediately falls in love. Her brother, meanwhile, is engaged with Geronte di Ravoire, a very rich government official who instantly plots to abduct her, perhaps with her brother’s approval or assistance. In private, des Grieux boldly proposes that they run off to Paris together, she accepts, and they escape successfully. Just in time, of course.
End of Act I, more or less.
Puccini’s Act II begins with her being Geronte’s mistress, however bored and also yearning for des Grieux and some sexual stimulation. Massenet instead opens with her cohabitating in poor student squalor with des Grieux when his best friend, who plays a prominent role in the novel but is utterly absent in Puccini, arrives, ostensibly trying to intervene before des Grieux is surprised by the appearance of his brother, who abducts the kid and returns him to his father’s estate. The friend, in cahoots with the brother and stern father, has forewarned Manon, who then chooses to side with Guillot’s luxury (yes, the sugar daddy is given a different name, to the same effect). The novel paints a darker scene. Des Grieux has gloated of handing control of his purse over to his lover and is proud of all she’s been able to purchase; he’s shocked, of course, when he finally hears her explanation of “donations” from Geronte; she coyishly claims the exchanges do nothing to diminish her affection for the poor boy, who still believes she’s innocent in all ways. In the novel, she’s revealed as a coconspirator in facilitating the abduction, which then permits her to disentangle herself to commit to dissolute wealth and ease. Unlike the operas, the novel then plunges into des Grieux’ pits of despair and anger, including incarcerations, along with her string of rich patrons she fleeces and promptly flees, each time pulling des Grieux back into the picture to assist her escape. To thicken the plot, des Grieux has turned to seminary and priesthood, only to fall once more for Manon’s pleading and charms. In the book, she’s more manipulative, and the novel’s more about him than her.
Ultimately, in the operas, Geronte/Guillot has the police arrive as she’s trying to pack up jewelry she received in payment for her services. You might say she accidentally spills the beans. She’s imprisoned and convicted on theft and prostitution charges and sentenced to exile in frontier New Orleans. The operas cast her as a tragic victim of injustice in a cruel world. The novel, however, has her more of a repeat offender who never lives up to her end of the bargain with a succession of libertine benefactors. In contrast, des Grieux can be seen as darkly comical in his obsession even in the face of her repeated duplicities. Come here, come here, go away, go away. (The story painfully reminds me of a similar upheaval in my own past. I can’t say that he or I were truly victims of anything but our own fantasies or fancies.) The first stage adaptation cast the story as a dark comedy, but that effort fell flat.
From the novel one can venture that she’s not the innocent virgin des Grieux is when they run off together. Perhaps that’s the reason she was bound for the convent, a response to her earlier sexual behavior or escapades. She certainly appears experienced in their initial passionate coitus on the road to Paris, the deflowering of des Grieux. It’s enough for him to consider themselves married. Throughout both the book and the operas, it’s easy to view Manon’s brother as something of a pimp or procurer. He’s not exactly her protector at the inn or anytime thereafter. As Wikipedia says, despite its “poor critical reception, the novel quickly seduced the public.” Frankly, it does border on pornography.
The author, more formally Antoine Francoise Prevost, parallels much of his own life in Memoires and Adventures, which includes Manon.
And then? Let’s turn to Sophia Coppola’s third movie, Marie Antoinette, with all of the lavishness of French ruling class excess at the end of that century. Trace through the history of Marie’s husband’s grandfather, Louis XIV, and you’ll learn of the custom of mistresses – it seems every rich male had them, along with multiple estates – and clergy were often active in the arrangements.
In the end, I feel much more sympathy for the ill-fated queen than I do for the conniving courtesan. Puccini, though, compensates des Grieux with a big aria that expresses the rapture of desire, “Donna non vidi mai.”
~*~
The novel in digital formats is available for free in English translation at gutenberg.org and Internet Archive [https://archive.org/details/manonlescaut00pruoft or audiobook https://archive.org/details/manon_lescaut_1606_librivox%5D. It may also be purchased in Kindle and print editions at Amazon.
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