Renée Fleming and Richard Leech Manon Act III duet LIVE (1997) ROLE DEBUT

Live Paris Opera 1997
Conductor: Gary Bertini
Manon: Renée Fleming
Des Grieux: Richard Leech

0:00 "Pardonnez-moi"
1:30 "Toi! Vous!"
3:13 "Ah! Perfide Manon!"
4:54 "N'est-ce plus ma main que cette main presse?"


Renée Fleming making her role debut in Massenet's Manon in 1997. As such this is her earliest recording of the role. Her splendid 2001 performance of the same role, in the same opera house, and the same production was later released on CD and DVD. This scene is particularly spectacular on that recording, along with Act IV, well worth hearing.

In the line of Thais and Esclarmonde, Manon is another absurdly challenging soprano role by Massenet, who had a knack for vocal writing that demands everything of a performer technically and interpretatively. The role of Manon has been referred to as the French Brunhilde because of it's exceptional vocal demands - it is an extremely long role, requiring a flawless range from middle C up to (written) top E6s, a solid middle voice, excursions into chest register, a proper trill, flexibility and skill in managing the big registral shifts, coloratura in Act I and III, and surging power over heavy orchestration in Acts II, III and IV. It is often cast with very light lyric coloratura voices who are able to easily encompass the high notes, but then the rest of the role is usually left severely underpowered and musically ineffective.

Renée Fleming sings here the Act III duet with Richard Leech, in which Manon tries to seduce her former lover out of his life at the seminary at Saint-Sulpice. It's the most overtly sensuous music in the opera, and probably the most passionate too. One of the great duets of the romantic literature, in which Massenet (and Manon) pulls out all the stops to hit the audience below the belt.

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