So. I just finished reading Manon Lescaut (the book),and I recommend it. It’s a good story, with more meat to it than can properly get into an opera. However, the character of Manon is really hard to empathize with until the final disaster that destroys them in America. She just seems like a gold digger most of the time. Her need for dresses, jewels and entertainment is destructive. If they had just gone off and lived quietly they probably could have lived happily ever after ….ish.

Anyway. I have heard people rip on Puccini for the whole Louisiana desert element. How can a

guy who wants the shepherd boy's song in Tosca to be so authentic think that there is a desert in Louisiana?

Now I know, that the authenticity he is striving for is to the book apparently and not reality. All that desert stuff is in the book. But not knowing French, I wonder if this isn’t some kind of idiom translation problem here and they were really trying to convey “wasteland”, vast areas of undeveloped country.

Puccini’s devotion to accuracy ends there though as the story in act 2 and 3 is quite different from the book. But this story could be a weeklong miniseries, so you gotta do what you gotta do. What do you expect after all when“The libretto is in Italian, and was cobbled together by five librettists whom Puccini employed” * Wikipedia*

It IS interesting to think of New Orleans as some kind of shanty pioneer town and not as it became- one of the most cultured cities of the new world.Not too sure how accurate this representation is. But, you know, I think I want to visit Louisiana and New Orleans.. learn more about their histories. And one thing is for sure … when I design the Manon Lescaut Bracelet one day… I am definitely using this Louisiana charm…errmmm without the saxophone though.