Plenty of action, romance in Royal Ballet's 'Manon'
Make no mistake -- there's heart and soul in the Royal Ballet's sumptuous and emotionally complicated ``Manon." Choreographed in 1974 by Kenneth MacMillan, this three-act story ballet may have stripped the words from the 1884 Massenet opera, but it offers psychological complexity.
Plus a veritable Sears catalog of all the deadly sins, which were essential in the 18th century, the period of Abbe Prevost's original story. At the Wang Center, Nicholas Georgiadis's soaring sets -- tapestries on pulleys and a two-story-high canopy bed -- are drenched in rich sepia tones.
This ballet is action-packed -- ensemble scenes have the rich detail of a Hogarth engraving. Even when principal dancers step forward, engaging bits of business erupt around the edges of the scene. As the story begins, young Manon has met an attractive student, Des Grieux, just as her brother Lescaut intends her for wealthy Monsieur G.M. When she and Des Grieux escape with money she stole from her would-be suitor, the complications are ultimately disastrous. The second act is set in a brothel, and the third finds Manon deported to New Orleans, sick and dying, feebly defending herself from the brutal Gaoler.
As Manon, Tamara Rojo has charisma and superb skills. She has a signature step as the girlish Manon, delicately rising up en pointe and advancing downstage almost in a mince. Her attraction to Des Grieux (Carlos Acosta) is at first playful and exultant, and later, clearly tortured. Acosta's pas de deuxs with Rojo are tender and smoldering. He's also a dancer whose mid-air leaps and turns are so elaborate and slow, you wonder whether he's bouncing off a hidden trampoline. When predatory Monsieur G.M. (William Tuckett, who uses his towering size with great elegance) presents her with jewels and furs, her girlishness literally slips away as she promenades with her new finery.
Act two has enormous comedy when Lescaut turns up drunk at the brothel. As Lescaut, Jose Martin has heeded that aphorism used by actors who play drunks -- play drunk while trying to seem sober. His solo and then duet with his Mistress (Sarah Lamb, formerly of Boston Ballet) is all legs and windmilling arms. The two of them play off one another masterfully -- he sags when she's in his arms, yet somehow manages to hoist her up. There's even unexpected subtlety when he apes her hand movements.
What's remarkable about this ballet is its emphatic and even cheerful (until act three) amorality. In the 18th century, you paid for your sins, but you could go down swinging. And though there's little redemption for Manon, her plight becomes a human-scale tragedy, told with a glorious larger-than-life-size production.
