Rafał Korpik

In the Polish highlands, a sensitive peasant girl has given her heart and body to a rich landowner. But now he plans to marry someone else. Moniuszko’s romantic tragedy of mésalliance and social tension is regarded as one of the finest operas in the Polish repertoire. Poznań Opera performs their production on the giant stage of the Grand Theatre in Warsaw as guests of Polish National Opera.

After returning from the war, two brothers resolve never to marry so that they can serve their country. But they find their match when they meet two strong-willed sisters living in a mysterious manor.

Destined for the convent, the young Manon falls head over heels in love with a handsome stranger and decides to flee with him. Yet aspiring to a life of wealth and luxury, she ends up throwing herself into the arms of a rich nobleman. Can she forget her true love? Puccini’s adaptation of the novel by Abbé Prévost had a complicated gestation. An alarmingly long list of librettists succeed each other in trying to satisfy the composer’s demands in terms of dramatic structure and fine verbal detail. Was Puccini struggling perhaps to make his opera sufficiently different from Massenet’s on the same subject? Puccini probably never reached a ‘definitive’ form of this opera but it was his first international success and arguably the first in which the composer found his voice as a musical dramatist. Opera Poznań has entrusted their new production - streamed live on the opening night - to a former winner of the European Opera Directing Prize, Gerard Jones, and conductor Marco Guidarini.