Manon

Kenneth MacMillan's Manon is widely regarded as one of the greatest full-length narrative ballets of the twentieth century — a sweeping tragedy of desire, corruption and doomed love set to an ingeniously arranged score drawn from the operas and orchestral works of Jules Massenet. Based on the Abbé Prévost's 1731 novel L'Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut, the ballet follows the young and beautiful Manon, whose fatal weakness for wealth and luxury destroys both herself and the young student des Grieux who loves her desperately.

MacMillan created the work for The Royal Ballet in 1974, with Antoinette Sibley and Anthony Dowell in the leading roles, though the premiere was ultimately danced by Jennifer Penney and David Wall. From the opening scene in a teeming Paris coaching inn to the desolate swamps of Louisiana where the ballet reaches its devastating conclusion, MacMillan conjures a world of sensuality, moral ambiguity and social hypocrisy with extraordinary theatrical power.

The choreography is celebrated above all for its pas de deux, some of the most demanding and emotionally complex in the entire classical repertoire. The bedroom duet in Act One, the illicit assignation in Act Two, and the heartbreaking final pas de deux in the bayou — where des Grieux cradles the dying Manon — are scenes of almost unbearable intimacy. MacMillan draws fully on the classical vocabulary but pushes it to expressive extremes, using twisted limbs, precarious balances and extreme physical risk to convey the lovers' consuming passion.

Manon remains one of the signature works of both The Royal Ballet and English National Ballet, and a touchstone role for the world's great dramatic ballerinas. Its combination of technical virtuosity and emotional depth makes it as powerful today as when MacMillan first unveiled it to a stunned Covent Garden audience over fifty years ago.