Manon

This outstanding concert performance of Manon Lescaut with Anna Netrebko and Yusif Eyvazov was the absolute highlight of the 2016's Salzburg Festival – a moment of operatic glory, captured live for this unique release.
Anna excelled herself and fascinated the audience with the perfection of her exceptional voice, her unrivaled interpretation and her devotion to this very part – she is the Manon Lescaut of our time. While Verismo already features the aria "In quelle trine morbide" and the fourth act of Manon Lescaut in a breathtaking studio-version, documenting her great passion to this work, the complete recording of Manon Lescaut will be a great addition to Anna's fans and opera lovers alike.

The first of Puccini's operas to become popular, Manon Lescaut is a study of a composer reaching his youthful maturity. Each act is a little less flabby than the one that came before it. By the time we reach Act Four, Puccini has built up a full head of steam, and there's not much distance to traverse between Manon's death on a plain near New Orleans and Mimi's death in a garret in Paris. To get there, we start with an Act One that has its moments (notably the tenor's "Donna non vidi mai," although Puccini cannibalized it from an earlier work), an Act Two that has the heartbreakingly simple "In quelle trine morbide" and a whiz-bang climax, and an Act Three that is full of pathos – just like the equivalent act in La Bohème, but without the great set-pieces…

Raymond Tuttle

C’est l’histoire d’une fille…
Manon vit avec sa mère à Los Angeles. Son père, elle ne le voit que deux fois par an. Durant l’adolescence tout bascule. Une menace de suicide, un séjour en internat pendant son anniversaire et deux rencontres avec la police plus tard, elle fait le mur une nuit et rencontre des ennuis plus grands qu’elle. …