United Kingdom Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon: Dancers of The Royal Ballet, Orchestra of the Royal Opera Home / Koen Kessels (conductor). Broadcast reside (directed by Ross MacGibbon) from the Royal Opera Home, Covent Backyard, London, 27.10.2026 and seen at Everyman Cinema, Chelmsford, Essex, 3.11.2026. (JPr)
When coming again to Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon I do are likely to repeat myself each about its background and – having checked not too long ago – in regards to the performances of some main {couples}. The manufacturing is now in its 53rd yr and I first noticed it in 1980 (what number of others commenting on this revival noticed it as way back as that?). Creating the roles of Manon and Des Grieux in 1974 had been Antoinette Sibley and Anthony Dowell and I first noticed Lesley Collier and Stephen Jefferies. In fact I’ve seen it a number of instances since then, each at Covent Backyard or extra not too long ago on the cinema (2014, 2018, 2024 and now).
Launched by the urbane Petroc Trelawny and the charming (however at all times barely chaotic) Dame Darcey Bussell, as ever there was quite a lot of attention-grabbing background info within the movies and interviews we had been proven to accompany this reside relay. What I took away most of all was how Kenneth MacMillan focussed on how nicely the roles could possibly be acted and as Kevin O’Hare, director of The Royal Ballet, defined ‘He actually wished us to be pure, actual folks on stage. So even after we’re being a prince or no matter, a fairytale, we’ve received a naturalism that I believe he gave us by way of the ballets that we do, like Manon, like Romeo and Juliet’.
Manon is Yasmine Nagdhi’s first function after her maternity depart following the delivery of her son in December 2025. It was fairly poignant when Naghdi made clear her concern about whether or not she would pretty much as good as earlier than (she is, if not higher!) having mused on motherhood and the precarious nature of life as a ballerina. Nonetheless, nothing we heard was higher than when Woman MacMillan stated in 2014 how she was so typically requested who her favorite Manon was that she received so fed up and jokily answered that every one the motion was ‘labored out on me at dwelling within the nude’ … and it was printed!
If you’re not conscious, the story of Manon originated in Abbé Prévost’s 1731 eponymous novel. She is a teenage girl who struggles to decide on between the real love of penniless scholar Des Grieux, or the loveless luxurious provided by Monsieur G.M., a wealthy roué. It’s 18th-century Paris populated by the wealthy and highly effective with an inordinate curiosity within the lives of girls on the fringes of respectable society; or the poor and destitute whose solely escape routes from their plight is criminality or prostitution.
The riches-to-rags story is highlighted within the late Nicholas Georgiadis’s designs with an virtually ever-present backdrop of rags which contextualises the opulence and finery we’ll see acted out earlier than them within the first two acts. There are beggars scrounging cash the place they’ll and courtesans parading round and out there to these with the deepest pockets. The three-act narrative ballet begins within the bustling courtyard of an inn close to Paris and ends within the murky swamps of Louisiana. The reasonably uncomfortable, misogynistic story clearly vastly appealed to Sir Kenneth with the thieving and dishonest, love and lust, intercourse (consensual or in any other case), jealousy, homicide, wrongful conviction and the far-from-happy ending.
The rating stays an issue as a result of though Manon is choreographed to music by Massenet – initially organized by Leighton Lucas in collaboration with Hilda Gaunt and subsequently re-orchestrated by Martin Yates – it doesn’t embody a notice from the composer’s opera of the identical identify. On this event, the hotchpotch of Massenet melodies – which incorporates the craving Élégie in every of the three acts – has by no means sounded so inappropriately cheerful because it sometimes now did with all of the cavorting in Act I and partying in Act II. Additionally, I observed greater than ever the oddly Spanish-inflected moments within the first two acts. I’m led to imagine that the ecstatic music the tip of Act III would possibly replicate triumph (of real love?) over adversity. But, Manon’s downfall has been so harrowing that we have to actually expertise in what we see and listen to the use and (sexual) abuse Manon has suffered from the boys – Des Grieux aside – in her life. By way of the wonderful sound system of the Everyman Cinema the Orchestra of the Royal Opera Home gave an impressive account of the – now seeming lusher than ever – music. Music director Koen Kessels’s account was usually superbly judged (although I questioned if he indulged the main dancers just a bit at instances?). Once more, there was one other splendidly evocative cello solo between the scenes in Act III from Christopher Vanderspar.
I’m reminded of how for the ballerina dancing Manon she is ‘an ingénue in Act I, queen of the demimonde in Act II, or destitute convict in Act III’. The returning Yasmine Naghdi encompassed the heart-wrenching emotional journey captivatingly. On her arrival in Act I she was not a wide-eyed harmless and shortly understood her potential to entice males and reel in a rich protector. There was a fluid weightlessness to Naghdi’s dancing which was unforced and pure all through MacMillan’s demanding choreography with all its extravagant balances, lifts, solos, duets, and pas de trios displaying Manon’s ardour, depravity, and bodily exhaustion. Naghdi along with her cropped hair and ragged garments within the final act was unrecognisable from the girl sporting the furs and jewels in Act II. Whether or not revelling in being alone with Des Grieux in his bed room or having to endure the brutality of Bennet Gartside’s lecherous Gaoler on the Louisiana penal colony, Naghdi’s interpretation was as compelling as any I’ve seen prior to now.
This in fact was helped by a few of Ross MacGibbon’s camerawork which revealed in close-up what a wonderful dancer and actor Naghdi is. It additionally confirmed up that whereas the long-limbed William Bracewell may painting the feelings Des Grieux was going by way of and has a sleek ‘princely’ approach when dancing, he was totally incapable, to me, of appearing and dancing on the identical time. That is extra obvious on a big cinema display screen than it might be to anybody sitting within the amphitheatre at Covent Backyard. Des Grieux is a troublesome function combining important technical challenges with difficult partnering and plausible appearing. Whereas Bracewell was visibly distraught when Manon died on the finish of the ballet, too typically he had stopped appearing when he wanted to bounce as an alternative of permitting it to tell his motion. Bracewell’s two main solos appeared precisely the identical; although he was professing love in Act I and pleading for Manon’s affections in Act II. It isn’t the primary time I’ve commented like this through the years on a Royal Ballet male principal and it have to be a training situation.
Joseph Sissens, a real dance-actor, was excellent as Lescaut. This can be a completely despicable character who will get a peculiar comedian drunk scene within the second act as he makes an attempt to associate Leticia Dias, equally good as his provocative mistress. Lescaut later will get to interact in a swordfight, lifted straight from MacMillan’s earlier Romeo and Juliet. Thomas Whitehead was Monsieur G. M. and had the haughty mien of somebody used to getting no matter he wished. Alone with Manon he loses management and might hardly maintain his fingers off her with some distasteful-looking stroking and foot fetishism. Christina Arestis additionally stood out as an unscrupulous Madame with the air of sophistication.
In its 323rd efficiency by The Royal Ballet at Covent Backyard, Manon stays a richly textured ballet, with these across the edges of the stage virtually as necessary because the principals in creating a correct background for the story of two doomed lovers. The corporate had been on their greatest kind with nobody on the fringes showing to modify off and all dancing with admirable dedication within the ensemble moments.
Jim Pritchard
Featured Picture: Leticia Dias (Lescaut’s Mistress) and Joseph Sissens (Lescaut) © Mihaela Bodlovic
Credit:
Choreography – Kenneth MacMillan
Music – Jules Massenet (orch. Martin Yates, initially compiled by Leighton Lucas with the collaboration of Hilda Gaunt)
Designer – Nicholas Georgiadis
Lighting designer – Jacopo Pantani
Staging – Creative Supervisor for the MacMillan Property Laura Morera
Staging director – Christopher Saunders
Solid:
Manon – Yasmine Naghdi
Des Grieux – William Bracewell
Lescaut – Joseph Sissens
Monsieur G. M. – Thomas Whitehead
Lescaut’s Mistress – Leticia Dias
Madame – Christina Arestis
The Gaoler – Bennet Gartside
Beggar Chief – Daichi Ikarashi
Courtesans – Olivia Cowley, Mariko Sasaki, Lara Turk, Julia Roscoe~Gents – Luca Acri, Leo Dixon, Joonhyuk Jun
Purchasers – Lukas B. Brændsrød, Brayden Gallucci, Philip Mosley, Aiden O’Brien, Christopher Saunders
Previous Gentleman – James Hay
Artists of The Royal Ballet and College students of The Royal Ballet College
