MANON LESCAUT

PARIS OF 1910–1915

KRISTINA SABALIAUSKAITĖ

Dalia Ibelhauptaitė and Juozas Statkevičius transported the Rococo, decadent, and moral-question-provoking story of Manon Lescaut into the years 1910–1915 - a rich era for a theatre director and a designer, especially if they know how to blend historical allusions. This was a turning point for mass culture, theatre, and for women in particular. The great dames of the era mastered the art of manipulating public opinion, employing their own theatrical allure alongside their ambiguous social roles.

1910–1915 was a transitional period - a move away from the extravagant, yet tragedy-marked Belle Époque, with its famous kept women, called Les Grandes Horizontales in France (since their fame came while resting horizontally...). The “Dame with Camellias” - Alphonsine Duplessis or Cora Pearl - not only symbolize sexuality but a cultural phenomenon, immortalized by Alexandre Dumas, Verdi, and Guy de Maupassant. Rising from their salons and boudoirs - where the most renowned and rich fell under their spell - their sphere of influence was a closed world, or, at most, a box in the opera. The demimondaines were, in a way, on the margins of high society - a fact well documented, yet socially unacceptable (despite many “respectable” men frequently visiting their salons).

Everything changed after 1910. Cinema began to take over the role previously held by theatre in society, while theatre itself became more refined, more experimental, more conceptual. Both forms - theatre and cinema - profoundly influenced fashion, and their innovations were diffusely disseminated through magazines, notably Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. Silent cinema, with its lack of words, demanded especially expressive actor profiles and extravagant costumes. Theatre, meanwhile, tried not to be left in the shadow of cinema, offering increasingly sophisticated and conceptually rich spectacles. The imagination of the creators disregarded geographical or chronological borders. Fashion magazines became powerful media, creating a new phenomenon - the international superstar.

Sarah Bernhardt (sometimes called the last of the great courtesans and the first of the new celebrities), Pola Negri, Mata Hari, Isadora Duncan, Marchesa Casati - these were the international celebrities, known from Hollywood to St. Petersburg - employing their media prowess and extravagant lifestyle to keep their names alive in the collective imagination. Brilliant actresses and dancers, kept women or even suspected spies - famous for their real or rumored talents - they bankrupted their rich admirers, tossed diamond necklaces overboard, kept leopards on leashes (like Sarah Bernhardt), or arrived at glamorous balls wearing a fireworks-studded dress (like Marchesa Casati). They delighted, fascinated, and manipulated the masses and their lovers with their ability to transform their image and to become something new - both on stage and in their daily lives.

This transformation was made possible by a growing attraction to the exotic - and especially Orientalism - a reflection of the era’s expansion of knowledge through extensive museum collections and private holdings. Mata Hari, a Dutch woman, kept her ordinary ancestry a secret by masquerading as a Hindu princess from Java, adding allure through her “Oriental” dances - a blend of sensual expression and taboos. Isadora Duncan, barefoot and draped in shawls, performed a kind of biblical, elemental Salome-like dance. The glamorous, desirable creatures - odalisques, harem slaves, Egyptian pharaohs, geishas, gypsies, Byzantine empresses, wild nomads - captured the collective imagination, symbolizing both danger and temptation.

Artists, set designers, and fashion designers made a dramatic imprint on the era’s cultural history. Paul Poiret (1879–1944), a Parisian designer, successfully blended this Orientalist allure with the fashion of his time - creating famous “odalisque” looks. Often called the designer who freed women from their corsets, Poiret, in reality, kept them enslaved in another form - by designing a restrictive, narrow-skirt silhouette with a small train - forcing the women to move in tiny, geisha-like steps - adding a flavor of “bondage” or “sexual constraint” to their allure. So, the true laurels for “fashion emancipation” belong instead to Coco Chanel; Paul Poiret’s woman, while free of a corset, remained a prisoner - a victim of the designer’s will - the “Pasha of Paris.”

But what a riot! The excess of patterns, textures, decoration, and jewelry in clothing may teeter on the edge of good taste, at least in our view. Accessories became miniature works of art. In a single ensemble, brocade, lace, silk, and velvet could be combined; embroidery and appliqués, fringe and ostrich feathers, pearls, and furs. Oh yes - furs, of course. Sable, fox, and squirrel furs - these reflect a strong Russian influence during that period. Mainly, of course, due to Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes troupe and their designer, Leon Bakst, a Jewish-Lithuanian from Grodno. Bakst’s costumes and sets for Rimsky-Korsakov’s ballet Scheherazade in 1910 were undeniably a key influence on the fashion of the era - for a few seasons in Paris, it was even said that “our current fashion looks as if Bakst’s production had come alive.”

Poiret eagerly implemented this style for his clients, and two leading illustrators - Paul Iribe and Erté - helped popularize it. It’s no coincidence that Paul Iribe (later Coco Chanel’s lover) tried his hand at designing textile patterns, editorial work for Le Témoin, and even published a book of erotic drawings inspired by Poiret’s costumes, further emphasizing the era’s sexually suggestive Orientalism.

Romain de Tirtoff, a Russian émigré from Saint Petersburg who chose the pseudonym Erté (after his initials), became one of the most influential advocates of this style. Erté first worked for Paul Poiret, then secured a major contract with Harper’s Bazaar, shaping its dramatic graphic design and overall aesthetic. From its pages, Erté’s design crossed over into the stage - especially at the Folies Bergère, the legendary Parisian revue. His repertoire at that moment was something new. It was no longer comic opera or operetta, but… a show. With impressive, semi-nude or even nude women, extravagant costumes, dramatic ostrich feathers, lighting, and special effects. The glamorous demimonde, previously hidden in salons or box seats, suddenly found its way directly into the spotlight.

Fashion researchers today still acknowledge the ongoing influence of Paul Poiret, Leon Bakst, Paul Iribe, and Erté. The bold Orientalism, the theatrical style, and its sexual hints continue to inspire designers across the world. This production of Manon Lescaut is yet another example - a manifestation that brings the ambiguous story of Manon into a period of courtesans, kept women, adventuresses, and stylish art, a time when a woman didn’t know whether she was a predator or a victim, but certainly wanted - and knew how - to be on stage, at the center of everyone's attention.

SCANDALOUS NOVEL OF ROMANCE

“Turn the pages of Manon Lescaut, then destroy it by fire - but it's worth reading it at least once.” “There’s really only a single successful comparison in it: the girl was so charming that she could bring back idolatry to the world.” This is how contemporaries commented on the novel The Story of Chevalier des Grieux and Manon Lescaut by Antoine François Prevost (1697–1763), better known as Abbé Prevost, which later became the basis for G. Puccini’s opera. If the term “bestseller” had existed in the 18th-century, this book would certainly have deserved it. A novel of love and adventure, frequently reprinted during its author’s lifetime and translated into many languages, it was a bestseller for a long time. It was both venerated and cursed, banned and recopied by hand.

A STORM OF POPULARITY

Abbé Prevost’s novel tells a tale of fateful, all-consuming love. The action is set during the Regency (1715–1723), when the pleasures of life blossomed under the guidance of the dissolute Philippe d’Orléans. French society was experiencing a dramatic liberation from the restrictive piety of the previous era - the reign of the elderly King Louis XIV, who had outlived his son and grandson. People began to breathe more freely, yielding to their desires for happiness, pleasures, and indulgences.

In 1731, the seventh volume of Prevost’s Memoirs and Adventures of a Nobleman was published - for the first time featuring the story of Manon Lescaut, which, according to literary researchers, was based on the author’s own experience. The work was published in Amsterdam, where Prevost, a restless man, was looking for happiness. The tale of the ill-fated courtesan initially passed without much notice from readers. It was only in 1733, when it appeared in France under its own title - The Story of Chevalier des Grieux and Manon Lescaut - that a scandal arose alongside a rush of immense popularity.

DEBAUCHERY AND COMPASSION

At first glance, Prevost’s story is simple: Chevalier des Grieux falls in love with a low-born but charmingly seductive Manon Lescaut - a woman whose allure he cannot resist. She reciprocates his affection, but just as much as love, luxury, pleasures, and a high life attract her. This she finds in rich men who are fascinated by her. The passionate lover, trying to keep up, falls into gambling, theft, imprisonment, and even killing. Manon falls just as much - until, in the end, she is arrested and exiled to America. De Grieux follows her. The tragedy reaches its conclusion when Manon dies in her lover’s arms, far from home; De Grieux, broken but still in love, eventually enters the clergy upon his return to France.

In France, the novel was immediately banned as “immoral.” Newspapers fell over themselves to comment on its scandalous nature. “This book is so masterfully and charmingly written that even respectable people sympathize with a crook and a courtesan,” wrote Le Journal de Paris. A few days later, the same paper continued: “This book, which is just beginning to attract everyone's attention, is now banned. It’s not enough that it attributes unworthy actions to people of honor; the author also shows vice and debauchery in a way that fails to inspire proper disgust.”

The letters of the lawyer and scholar Matthieu Marais to the famous lawyer, writer, and academic Jean Bouhier eloquently reflect their view of Prevost. “That former Benedictine is a half-wit; he recently wrote a deplorable little book, The Story of Manon Lescaut, whose heroine is a strumpet who lived in a refuge (at that time, refuge houses sheltered not only orphans and invalids but also women of ill-repute) and is transported in chains to the Mississippi. The book was peddled in Paris, and people rushed toward it like butterflies toward a flame - a flame which hopefully will destroy both the book and its author, although I must admit his style is not poor.”

LOVE ABOVE MORALS

Manon Lescaut’s moral principles are far from spotless, yet there’s nothing vulgar in Prevost’s story. He expresses passionately and openly the feeling that overcomes all moral barriers. Prevost lifts up the wanton woman to the tragedy of love and suffering. Is vice redeemable by love? The heroine of Prevost’s novel believes that yielding to temptation is not betrayal - after all, she sells only her body, while her affections belong to de Grieux. Manon is passionate, free - much like the God of Love - sung by the poets. She falls in love, reciprocates the feeling - but is it her fault that her desires are governed by momentary temptation and, even more, by a thirst for the pleasures of life?

The writer Gustave Flaubert claimed Prevost’s greatest merit was his ability to reveal with delicate precision the psychology of a woman who justifies everything in the name of love - even the most reprehensible actions. “Usually, male authors attribute their own motives to their heroines without ever thinking that women think and feel differently. In this regard, Abbé Prevost is a rare exception,” Flaubert wrote.

EVE OF THE FALL OF PARADISE

Abbé Prevost’s Manon Lescaut is a key character in European literature. The author marked a path for subsequent writers, developing the motif of the woman’s elusive, catastrophic allure. P. Mérimée, A. Dumas (fils), H. de Balzac, E. Brontë, G. de Maupassant, M. Proust, V. Nabokov, and many other European and American authors divided up the ambiguous, charming, and unfathomable French woman of the Regency.

Manon Lescaut arose after lengthy reflection on a woman's nature - a reflection previously found in myths, legends, plays, stories, and novels. But it was only in the mature Rococo era, which exalted femininity and its ambivalence, that Manon Lescaut - a kind of pure courtesan, a disinterested lover of luxury, a modest seductress who captured a noble heart - could come into being.

G. de Maupassant, a keen expert on the soul of a woman, perhaps put it most accurately: “The Venus de Milo’s form, the Gioconda’s smile, Manon Lescaut’s image - they constantly pursue and move us. They will live forever in the hearts of men; they will forever haunt all artists, all dreamers, all those who wish to comprehend the mysterious, unfathomable creature. Manon Lescaut - the most womanly of women, naively depraved, unfaithful, passionate, touching, cunning, and dangerous. Through this charming heroine, the writer reveals everything most seductive, desirable, and base in woman. Is it not a rebirth of the fallen Eve, eternal tempter, treacherous yet naïve, not distinguishing between good and evil, luring the strong yet vulnerable man - the eternal male - with the magic of her lips and eyes, much to his downfall?