Arts & Entertainment
A gem loses its luster
Despite a magnificent star, ‘Lescaut’ needs some polishing
Patricia Racette makes her role debut in ‘Manon Lescaut’ for Washington National Opera. (Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Washington National Opera)
‘Manon Lescaut’
Through March 23
Kennedy Center Opera House
2700 F St., NW
$25-$300
202-467-4600
kennedy-center.org
Opera can be an exquisite combination of art forms when done well — lush instrumentals combine with soaring vocals and engaging theatricality to create a passionate and transformative evening. That’s why the opening night of Washington National Opera’s “Manon Lescaut” was so teeth-grindingly frustrating. It polluted a sumptuous opera with high school-level missteps in directing, performance and conducting.
Rightfully lauded soprano Patricia Racette (a lesbian) made her role debut as Manon, and as expected she hit it out of the park. Her ability to convey pathos, both vocally and as an actress, lifted the character out of her two-dimensionality, suggesting a true conflict between Manon’s desire for real love and her gold-digging tendencies. At opera’s end, when Racette managed as she had throughout the evening to keep us spellbound by her vocal line and dramatic heft, the young girl’s demise became a heartbreaking cautionary tale about living for anything other than love.
Too bad, then, that this remarkable artist had to battle an orchestra run amok. Puccini’s score is rife with sweeping gestures of romantic tragedy and under the baton of Philippe Auguin, the orchestra certainly, but not always wisely, matched the mood. The players sounded so intoxicated with the score that, at times, they sawed away at it drunkenly, often drowning out the principles. The duet between Manon and her lover Des Grieux, Bulgarian tenor Kamen Chanev, leaned perilously close to becoming a shouting match.
Chanev was clearly hired for his money notes, the bread-and-butter of any tenor, and here he delivered in spades. His passionately ringing high note and legato in the act three aria, “No! Pazzo son! Guardate,” would crack the heart of the most hardened opera aficionado, yet, high notes only do not a good tenor make. Often employing vocal parlor tricks to cover a lack of dynamic subtlety, the large-voiced Chanev stumbled clumsily through much of Puccini’s lyric writing. (Perhaps he should have taken phrasing cues from Raúl Melo’s stylistically charming Edmondo.)
This “Manon Lescaut,” a revival of the 2007 production, was created and directed by gay opera director John Pascoe, who also helmed Washington National Opera’s “Don Giovanni,” seen earlier this season, and 2008’s dynamic “Lucrezia Borgia.”
Some brilliant and unexpected design choices — a large bust-topped pillar transformed into a human-sized jewel box for Manon and broken palace pieces as the heroine’s final resting place — highlighted the shallow artifice of 18th-century Paris juxtaposed with the lonely end we all crawl toward.
The grand desolation of Manon, who goes from dancing in the glittering salons of Paris to dying on a windswept plain in America, is one hair’s breadth away from melodrama, and some of Pascoe’s blocking and set choices only highlighted this unfortunate tendency. Using a large scrolled page as a screen for projecting quotes from the original Manon story written in the 17th-century by Abbé Prévost, this page regularly split in two, framing the stage and suggesting a grand fairy tale. At times, the halves would draw closer together, unnecessarily highlighting a lead character’s aria in a ham-handed attempt to let the audience know this moment was important — as if the writing and performance alone couldn’t do that.
Hackneyed operatic staging threatened to turn the piece into a silent film. Des Grieux and Manon often didn’t sing to each other at all in moments of high passion, and sometimes they weren’t even near one another. During her death scene, the heroine was draped languidly in a sepulchral broken pillar, only then to sing about being in her tomb. Yeah. We got that, already.
Perhaps in the relentless march to make opera easily accessible, the production team sacrificed the delicacy and infinite emotional variations that reflect real life. Manon’s story is not so absurd in an era when people will just as easily sell their soul for a shot on reality TV as they would sell out true love for a chance to wear jewel-encrusted gowns.
The 2026 Mr. Mid-Atlantic Leather competition was held at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill on Sunday. Seven contestants vied for the title and Gage Ryder was named the winner.
(Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Theater
Voiceless ‘Antony & Cleopatra’ a spectacle of operatic proportions
Synetic production pulls audience into grips of doomed lovers’ passion
‘Antony & Cleopatra’
Through Jan. 25
Synetic Theater at
Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Klein Theatre
450 7th St., N.W.
Synetictheater.org
A spectacle of operatic proportions, Synetic Theater’s “Antony & Cleopatra” is performed entirely voiceless. An adaptation of the Bard’s original (a play bursting with wordplay, metaphors, and poetic language), the celebrated company’s production doesn’t flinch before the challenge.
Staged by Paata Tsikurishvili and choreographed by Irina Tsikurishvili, this worthy remount is currently playing at Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Klein Theatre, the same venue where it premiered 10 years ago. Much is changed, including players, but the usual inimitable Synectic energy and ingenuity remain intact.
As audiences file into the Klein, they’re met with a monumental pyramid bathed in mist on a dimly lit stage. As the lights rise, the struggle kicks off: Cleopatra (Irina Kavsadze) and brother Ptolemy (Natan-Maël Gray) are each vying for the crown of Egypt. Alas, he wins and she’s banished from Alexandria along with her ethereal black-clad sidekick Mardian (Stella Bunch); but as history tells us, Cleopatra soon makes a triumphant return rolled in a carpet.
Meanwhile, in the increasingly dangerous Rome, Caesar (memorably played by Tony Amante) is assassinated by a group of senators. Here, his legendary Ides of March murder is rather elegantly achieved by silver masked politicians, leaving the epic storytelling to focus on the titular lovers.
The fabled couple is intense. As the Roman general Antony, Vato Tsikurishvili comes across as equal parts warrior, careerist, and beguiled lover. And despite a dose of earthiness, it’s clear that Kavsadze’s Cleopatra was born to be queen.
Phil Charlwood’s scenic design along with Colin K. Bills’ lighting cleverly morph the huge pyramidic structure into the throne of Egypt, the Roman Senate, and most astonishingly as a battle galley crashing across the seas with Tsikurishvili’s Antony ferociously at the helm.
There are some less subtle suggestions of location and empire building in the form of outsized cardboard puzzle pieces depicting the Mediterranean and a royal throne broken into jagged halves, and the back-and-forth of missives.
Of course, going wordless has its challenges. Kindly, Synectic provides a compact synopsis of the story. I’d recommend coming early and studying that page. With changing locations, lots of who’s who, shifting alliances, numerous war skirmishes, and lack of dialogue, it helps to get a jump on plot and characters.
Erik Teague’s terrific costume design is not only inspired but also helpful. Crimson red, silver, and white say Rome; while all things Egyptian have a more exotic look with lots of gold and diaphanous veils, etc.
When Synetic’s voicelessness works, it’s masterful. Many hands create the magic: There’s the direction, choreography, design, and the outrageously committed, sinewy built players who bring it to life through movement, some acrobatics, and the remarkable sword dancing using (actual sparking sabers) while twirling to original music composed by Konstantine Lortkipanidze.
Amid the tumultuous relationships and frequent battling (fight choreography compliments of Ben Cunis), moments of whimsy and humor aren’t unwelcome. Ptolemy has a few clownish bits as Cleopatra’s lesser sibling. And Antony’s powerful rival Octavian (ageless out actor Philip Fletcher) engages in peppy propaganda featuring a faux Cleopatra (played by Maryam Najafzada) as a less than virtuous queen enthusiastically engaged in an all-out sex romp.
When Antony and Cleopatra reach their respective ends with sword and adder, it comes almost as a relief. They’ve been through so much. And from start to finish, without uttering a word, Kavsadze and Tsikurishvili share a chemistry that pulls the audience into the grips of the doomed lovers’ palpable passion.
Out & About
Love board games and looking for love?
Quirk Events will host “Board Game Speed Dating for Gay Men” on Thursday, Jan. 22 at 7 p.m. at KBird DC.
Searching for a partner can be challenging. But board games are always fun. So what if you combined board games and finding a partner?
Picture this: You sit down for a night of games. A gaming concierge walks you through several games over the course of the night. You play classics you love and discover brand new games you’ve never heard of, playing each with a different group of fun singles. All while in a great establishment.
At the end of the night, you give your gaming concierge a list of the folks you met that you’d like to date and a list of those you met that you’d like to just hang out with as friends. If any two people put down the same name as each other in either column, then your gaming concierge will make sure you get each other’s e-mail address and you can coordinate a time to hang out.
Tickets cost $31.80 and can be purchased on Eventbrite.
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