Amina Edris and Pene Pati Lead San Francisco Opera's Manon

Soprano Amina Edris led San Francisco Opera's opening night of Massenet's "Manon," the company's third production of the Fall season, alongside her real-life husband, tenor Pene Pati, under Music Director Eun Sun Kim. The result, as the OperaWire reviewer put it, alternated between "right on" and "still working out the kinks."

The production, directed by Vincent Boussard, who also designed the costumes, revived the company's staging of one of the French repertory's most durable works. The reviewer came away "humming bars from the lovely soundscape and pondering numerous 'what ifs' from the life of Manon."

What makes this Manon work?

The character herself is the puzzle. One moment she is devoted to love, the next to money, status and pleasure. She flees the convent, runs to Paris, and dies in the arms of her lover, Des Grieux. Edris, the reviewer wrote, captured that instability with real skill.

Her Act Two "Adieu, le petit table," sung from her attic bed while staring at a distant table, was "nuanced and touching." Here the soprano moved past the "over-excited coquette" of Act One in Amiens and into genuine grief, with vocal color that created "the sense of fragility without being fragile." A moment later, gathering her belongings to flee that same beloved, she flipped to ecstatic anticipation of Parisian extravagance — the gown, the prancing gavotte, the flirtation.

The reviewer's verdict: Edris "appears to be on the cusp" of fully inhabiting the role's contradictions, and "is ready to sing more deeply into the subtleties" in future performances.

Pati's Des Grieux matched her. His "Fuyez, douce image" in the Act Three seminary scene, after Manon has abandoned him, was "heartbreaking and filled with pathos" — starting in a very soft piano, sometimes slightly blurred, then filling with volume, power and color. Their duets blended "one voice joining with the other... creating a shimmering whole." The romance, the reviewer conceded, was believable "largely only in operatic worlds," but it ultimately convinced the audience anyway.

The supporting cast included:

• Bass James Creswell as Le Comte des Grieux, in "rich and resonant tones" in the tradition of French moralistic fathers
• Baritone Vitor Bispo, in his San Francisco Opera debut, as Lescaut, making the most of his stage time vocally and dramatically
• Mezzo Laura Krumm (Javotte), soprano Sofia Gotch (Pousette) and mezzo Taylor Raven (Rosette), performing "with piquancy and vitality"
• Tenor Steven Cole (Guillot), baritone Stephen Gaertner (Brétigny) and baritone Olivier Zerouali (the Innkeeper)
• The chorus under John Keene, transforming into the populations of Amiens and Paris — gamblers, nuns and passersby

Where does the staging overreach?

Boussard's stagecraft drew a split verdict. The colorful costumes were "Hollywood-esque" and apt; a diagonal wall carried the shifting scenes well; multicolored balloons and a descending chair built a carnivalesque contrast to the stark black-and-white seminary.

But the reviewer flagged excess. A gorgeous descending chandelier felt "somewhat superfluous." A woman dangled from a rope upstage right for an entire scene — over 20 minutes — for an accent that didn't need it. Cord-like curtains for the Folies Bergère-style chorus seemed to "withdraw before the impact of the set could be felt." Gary Marder's lighting highlighted the narrative turning points, though it sometimes over-accented them. The reviewer's blunt conclusion: "Technology sometimes seduces us with its tools — we need not use them just because they exist." All of these choices "diluted the focus rather than highlighted it."

Massenet or Puccini?

An audience member overheard at the house asked about the difference between "this Manon and the other one" — Puccini's "Manon Lescaut," since both composers built libretti from Abbé Prévost's 18th-century novel. The answer given: "One is French, the other Italian." Massenet's version is elegant, eloquent and lyrical; Puccini's is intense, erotic and dramatically volatile.

What does this change for audiences? The singing core is already strong, and the reviewer expects the awkwardness typical of opening nights to smooth over in later performances — "the already beauteous singing will grow even more rich." For a company making the case that opera stays alive "and available to all of us," this Manon does the job, kinks and all.