Auber: Manon Lescaut

May 12th 2021 marks the 150th anniversary of Daniel-François-Esprit Auber’s passing. The most important figure of the French lyrical scene along with Meyerbeer during the second third of the 19th-century, he was so popular that his name was given very soon after his death to the main road running along the newly opened Opéra Garnier. Insomniac, Auber spent his days and nights composing, writing no less than forty-seven lyrical pieces in his lifetime, mostly irresistible comic operas.

Manon Lescaut, loosely based on Prevost’s novel, features the great Mady Mesplé and Jean-Claude Orliac.