Manon
Choreography · Kenneth MacMillan (1974)
music by Jules Massenet (a compiled score of pre-existing Massenet works — operas, orchestral suites, songs, and piano pieces — rather than a score written for the ballet; arranged and orchestrated by Leighton Lucas with Hilda Gaunt for the 1974 premiere, and re-orchestrated by Martin Yates in 2011/2014)
Manon, a poor but strikingly beautiful young woman, falls instantly in love with the penniless student Des Grieux, but her venal brother Lescaut steers her instead toward the wealth and luxury offered by the older, richer Monsieur G.M. Torn between love and material security, Manon drifts between the two men through the decadent salons of pre-Revolutionary Paris, until a card-game scandal gets her arrested and deported to America as a prostitute. Des Grieux follows her into exile, but after he kills a brutal gaoler who has assaulted her, the couple flee into the Louisiana swamps, where Manon, delirious and broken, dies in his arms.