Manon Lescaut

In this film we explore the influences of Abbé Prévost’s novel on other branches of the arts including opera, ballet and film.

Five operas (two by Masenet, one each by Auber and Puccini and one more recently by H. W. Henze) and a Japanese pop-opera with des Grieux in drag, two ballets (Kenneth Macmillan’s 1974 Manon is particularly memorable), fifteen films (the 1949 Manon by Henri Georges Clouzot won the first prize at the Venice film festival, Catherine Deneuve starred in a 1968 version that opened in Tokyo airport), six French and Italian TV series, and a Czech play were all adapted from the novel. Maurice Leloir’s later version of the subject (Dahesh Museum) was directly inspired by Dagnan-Bouveret’s composition, of which there was also a popular print which, in turn, influenced the portrayal of Manon’s death and burial in opera and film.