Manon Lescaut

About the opera

• Run time: 2hrs 30min, 1 intermission
• Sung in: Italian
• Subtitles: English, Italian and other languages
• Opera house: Vienna State Opera

Opera superstar Anna Netrebko is the young woman whose conflicting desires for love and luxury lead to her tragic end, and Yusif Eyvazov sings the man who falls for her in Puccini’s early masterpiece. Davide Luciano sings Manon’s brother and Evgeny Solodovnikov is her aging admirer. Jader Bignamini leads the Vienna State Opera Orchestra and Chorus in a score awash with color, melody, and searing drama.

Ticket information

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Vienna State Opera

Opernring 2, 1010 Vienna View in Google Maps

How to get there:

Subway: U1, U2, U4 to Karlsplatz

Trams: 1, 2, D, 62, 71 to Opernring

Music and Libretto

Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924) was enormously popular in his lifetime and is generally regarded as the greatest Italian composer of the post-Verdi generation. An operatic composer with a most original gift for lyrical melody, Puccini possessed a masterful technical savoir-faire and an extraordinary sense of the theatre. Although he created only ten operas in a 40-year career, his mature operas remain a firm part of the operatic repertoire and are among the most popular operas ever written.

His third opera, Manon Lescaut, brought him lasting fame and marked the beginning of a fruitful collaboration with the librettists Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Together, they wrote Puccini's three greatest masterpieces: La Bohème (1896), Tosca (1900) and Madama Butterfly (1904). In 1910, the premiere of La Fanciulla del West took place at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Puccini then composed a lighter piece, La Rondine, performed at the Monte-Carlo Opera. In 1918 Il Trittico premiered at the Metropolitan Opera. His last opera, Turandot, remained unfinished.