Manon is back at the Royal Opera House and Kenneth MacMillan’s ballet, created in 1974, gives standout roles for the three main characters, offering plenty of dancing along with ample room for interpretation. Is Manon just a greedy little minx prostituting herself for wealth or is she a victim of circumstance in seedy 18th-century Paris, where love takes second place to money?
MacMillan never flinches from showing us the dark side of the story: a backcloth of rags is a constant reminder that poverty and wealth sit uneasily side by side and the sexual nature of the narrative is always present. Some of the dances are almost pornographic in nature (this is not a ballet for children to see) and who but MacMillan could have ladies of the night cavorting across the Opera House stage? (He does it in Mayerling too, and his Romeo and Juliet has a couple of wonderful dances for three harlots… I see a pattern here!)
On opening night, Francesca Hayward danced Manon, with Marcelino Sambé as her lover Des Grieux and Joseph Sissens as her manipulative brother, Lescaut, who does not think twice about pimping her out to men as a way of accumulating wealth.
Physically, Hayward is the perfect Manon: tiny, fragile and very pretty, it is easy to see why she entrances men around her. Hayward plays her as flirtatious from the very beginning, revelling in her sexuality as she realises it is her route to power.
To get more from Life, click here to sign up for our free Life newsletter.