#AmReading the novel of Manon Lescaut, mostly because Dumas' heroine who became Verdi's Violetta owned a copy and I wanted to understand the references to Dumas' #LaDameAuxCamillas better; but also in hopes I might learn to appreciate Massanet and Puccini's Manon operas.
Instead, wherein Massanet's upsets me because the young man seems noble and good and his life is ruined by this love, I'm now fed up with his self-involvement. This was not the plan.
#opera

am approaching the point where Dumas' lovers will part and it's like there's all the deep sadness of Verdi's #opera but it's taking so much longer to get through and there's no lovely music and there won't be applause and happy after.
there's also the uncertainty of how this will happen. unlike the very familiar passages of opera.
not sure i like this.

#AmReading #LaDameAuxCamillas #Dumas
#LaTraviata #Verdi
#ProjectGutenberg

Dumas used the copy of Manon Lescaut owned by Marguerite (who #Verdi calls Violetta), gifted to her by her Alfredo (who Dumas calls Armand), to launch into an explicitly Christian wages of sin monologue. Which might have been required to dodge censors. I don't like it.
Dumas' lady dies very much alone, which Dumas' narrator recognises as bad, so Verdi gave Violetta the happiest ending possible within the parameters of tragedy.
#LaDameAuxCamillas #LaTraviata #Opera