Stand-in star doesn’t miss a step
Royal Opera House Manon
Stepping in as a late replacement to cover injury is almost routine for a ballet dancer. But to be asked at a few days’ notice to lead the firstnight cast of a heavy-hitter such as
Manon, that’s major. Francesca Hayward may be tiny, but rock-steady technique and a personality that beams to the back of the balcony came to her aid last night. As did the fact that, at 26, she looks about 15. For hers is a Manon who rushes into the moral quagmire of 1730s Paris with the heedlessness of youth. She’s not a calculating minx, nor a sucker for love as some have played her – she’s just greedy for experiences.
Kenneth Macmillan’s 1974 ballet is revived as part of a year-long tribute to the choreographer, who died 25 years ago. The Massenet score was beefed up in 2011 by Martin Yates, who will conduct all performances, to provide more muscular support for the drama. At times it sounds like a Hollywood action movie.
Which is not inappropriate, given the ballet’s cinematic scope. You need 180-degree vision to catch all the teeming detail – the pickpocketings and barterings of the opening street scene, the nefarious deals in the high-end brothel.
Yet the secret of a successful Manon lies in the dynamic fit of its central triangle. Here, Hayward’s rash ingénue is nicely matched by Alexander Campbell’s mile-a-minute Lescaut. You can see the cogs of his brain whirring as he assesses the material gains of any situation. Venal and ruthless, he’s the brother from hell.
His opposite is the dreamy student Des Grieux, with whom Manon elopes. Many fine dancers have struggled to find a personality for this aristocratic sap, but Federico Bonelli hits the spot. His Des Grieux is so buttoned up that his passion, when it does take fire, really blazes.
Other notable turns include Claire Calvert as Lescaut’s knocked-about mistress and Christopher Saunders as a particularly nasty Monsieur GM. What a clever stroke of Macmillan’s to make Manon’s purchaser a footfetishist. In the course of the queasily knotted threesome preceding the deal, a slavering Saunders almost takes a bite out of Hayward’s ankle as it brushes past his cheek.