I watched the Australian Ballet’s 2025 season Manon at the Sydney Opera House.
Mia Heathcote danced Manon tonight—she’s a soloist now, but her technique is amazing and I believe she will rise up to be principal soon.
Manon’s story is unconventional for ballet where the heroine is usually, well, not a ‘slut’. The synopsis is centered around Manon, the young, beautiful but poor woman with nothing but pretty privilege, torn to choose between her love for the impoverished student Des Grieux and the allure of wealth of Monsieur G.M. Ultimately she is arrested and deported for being a prostitute, with Des Grieux following her to a penal colony and she died.
Manon is a really complicated character. Well first she dumped her lover Des Grieux at some point for money—so we’re not talking about innocent Juliet or girly Giselle here. But if comparing to the other end of the female character spectrum, she’s also different to the slutty Carmen or sexy Kitri. I find her situation—that she was almost forced to choose between things, that she seems contradictory, and she has almost nothing but her look to utilize—very understandable and true. And she is somewhat authentic.
Manon is clever and unfortunate enough to own and understand her pretty privilege. She’s not a gold-digger. She’s just desperate.
Manon’s music
Kenneth Macmillan choreographed the ballet. It was premiered in 1974—rather modern a production. The music is very strong and emotional and fit the dance well, somewhat because it’s arranged specifically for the choreography.
When Kenneth MacMillan started work on his ballet version of Manon, rather than use the scores from Giacomo Puccini’s opera Manon Lescaut or Jules Massenet’s opera Manon, he chose to cherry-pick pieces of music written by the latter. This includes sections from some of Massenet’s other operas, oratorios, art songs and orchestra suites.
(English National Ballet)
The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House has released a recording of the ballet score: Apple Music, YouTube (US IP doesn’t work—you be ‘in’, say, German), Spotify.
The music is very very powerful—“haunting and evocative”. It lasts forever in my brain that I reminisce and dream about it… For example, at the beginning of act I, there’s a dialogue between oboe and the orchestra that is heartbreakingly beautiful—you can listen to it in the following link, I’ve set the timing to start at that moment—it’s just like 10 seconds.
For music nerds, the English National Ballet has this amazing blog about the origin of Manon’s music source: Spot the tunes in Manon. For example, the amazing act I opening dance scene, portraying the flirty inn that everything and everyone appears loved and adorable, is adapted from an aria in Massenet’s opera Chérubin—Vive amour qui rêve (long live love that dreams).