“Manon Lescaut will go to a film audition”

Jürgen Flimm, who will be staging the opera Manon Lescaut at the Mikhailovsky Theatre, held a meeting with the theatre company before the start of rehearsals. This is the first time in his impressive career that the revered German director has worked in Russia. He began with some reflections on the connections between Russian and German culture.

“Russia means much more to us than you might think”, Flimm told those taking part in the production. “We were born into Russian culture, and grew up listening to Russian music and reading Russian novels. It’s impossible to imagine contemporary stage direction without the influence of Russian theatre. Chekhov played a particularly important role. Where would directors be today if there had been no Chekhov?

“I’ve had the chance to work in many places, from New York to Beijing, but this is my first time working in Russia, and I will not try to hide my joy”, the director continued. “I am truly happy to find myself here in St. Petersburg, in the marvellous Mikhailovsky Theatre, together with you. We have five wonderful weeks ahead of us.”

All the nuances of the story which Jürgen Flimm observed in Giacomo Puccini’s opera, itself based on the Abbé Prévost’s novel L’Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut, will be gone over in detail during painstaking rehearsals. But the director made it clear that he will be taking a degree of liberty with the canonical libretto.

“The story of Manon Lescaut begins with the young lady and her brother going into, let’s say, a restaurant; Geronte spies her and seeks to win her affections, but she’s in love with des Grieux and runs away with him. So goes the first act”, explained the director, briefly outlining the well-known plot. “But we will tell a different story”, he continued. “Our Manon arrives at a film studio for an audition, and Geronte is the Hollywood producer who promises her the starring role in his film.”

Other details of the director’s plan will remain under wraps for now. It is worth noting, however, that the Mikhailovsky Theatre Opera Company is well accustomed to film studios as a setting. Due to the lack of rehearsal space in the theatre, many opera premières have been prepared at Lenfilm and LenDocFilm’s studios. This time, rehearsals will take place at Lenexpo, but the film studio environment will once again be present, now in the form of the stage setting for the opera. Closer to the première, spotlights, cameras, and other filming equipment will be moved from the rehearsal site to the theatre’s stage.