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Opera on 3

Music: Classical: Opera

Programme presenting rare and fascinating operatic performances

Programme presenting rare and fascinating performances and vividly communicating the immediacy of the live experience

Opera on 3: Henze's Boulevard Solitude

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Music: Classical

Henze's Boulevard Solitude

21/06/2014

BBC Radio 3 - Opera on 3, Henze's Boulevard Solitude

From Wales Millennium Centre, Henze's opera Boulevard Solitude, based on Manon Lescaut.

From Wales Millennium Centre, Henze's opera Boulevard Solitude, a take on the story of Manon Lescaut. With Jason Bridges as Armand des Grieux and Sarah Tynan as Manon Lescaut.

A rare opportunity to hear one of the masterpieces of the post-war operatic canon, Composed shortly after the Second World War, Boulevard Solitude is Henze's take on the story of Manon Lescaut, which had already attracted many composers before him. No genteel romance for Henze, though: his telling of the story takes us into a seedy world of desperate lowlife characters - rootless, loveless, egocentric, and desperate for drugs, money, and sex.

The story unfolds without a break in a series of seven scenes, the first of which takes place in a railway station bar, where Armand sees Manon and is instantly lovestruck. In the scenes that follow we witness the futility of his good intentions in the face of greed and desperation, and chart the course of their affair as it descends into a catastrophe largely brought about by Manon's bullying brother Lescaut.

This production was part of Welsh National Opera's Fallen Women season, and in his introduction Christopher Cook speaks to WNO's Artistic Director David Pountney, and the principal protagonists, about the opera and their roles within it.

Armand des Grieux ..... Jason Bridges (tenor)
Manon Lescaut ..... Sarah Tynan (soprano)
Lescaut ..... Benjamin Bevan (baritone)
Monsieur Lilaque ..... Adrian Thompson (tenor)
Francis ..... Alastair Moore (bass)
Young Lilaque ..... Laurence Cole (bass)
Mr Man ..... Tomasz Wygoda

Chorus of Welsh National Opera
Orchestra of Welsh National Opera
Lothar Koenigs (conductor).

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