Manon is an opéra comique in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille, based on the 1731 novel L'histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost. It was first performed at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 19 January 1884, with sets designed by Eugène Carpezat, Auguste Alfred Rubé and Philippe Chaperon, and Jean-Baptiste Lavastre.
Geraldine Farrar in the title role
"Gathering around a score" by Charles Baude (1853–1935) shows Massenet rehearsing Manon with Sibyl Sanderson in Pierre Loti's drawing room. It was used as the cover of Le Théâtre in July 1889.
Dmitri Smirnov as Le Chevalier des Grieux (1909, by Aleksandr Golovin)
American soprano Sibyl Sanderson as Manon in 1888
Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer of the Romantic era best known for his operas, of which he wrote more than thirty. The two most frequently staged are Manon (1884) and Werther (1892). He also composed oratorios, ballets, orchestral works, incidental music, piano pieces, songs and other music.
Cabinet card of Massenet by Eugène Pirou, 1895
Massenet's birthplace in Montaud, photographed c. 1908
Massenet in the early 1860s
Auditorium of the Opéra-Comique
