[Illustration: PUCCINI'S MANUSCRIPT SCORES, FROM THE SECOND ACT OF "TOSCA"]
The chief romances of the Abbé are the _Mémoires d'un Homme de Qualité_, _Cleveland_, and _Doyen de Killerine_ (the two latter, by the way, books which show the result of his sojourn in England). While these exhibit certain well-marked qualities, they are completely cast into the shade by _Manon Lescaut_, his masterpiece, and one of the greatest novels of the eighteenth century, while, from its characterisation, it may be pointed to as the father of the modern novel. The Chevalier des Grieux is an embodiment of the saying "Love first and the rest nowhere," and it is curious that the Abbé made a French translation of Dryden's once famous play on the same theme, _All for Love_. Manon, as a creation, is a triumph, one of the most remarkable heroines in fiction, springing red-hot as it were from the imagination of the wandering scholar who brought her into existence. It is all the more extraordinary that the novel which at once makes an appeal by its interest and sincerity, but which repays study as a work of art, should have been a sort of appendix to his first work.
Some years after Auber's opera had been laid on the shelf--it never attained to any great popularity--Massenet, a notable "modern" French composer, found by means of its story the expression of quite the best that was in him. Since _Carmen_ modern French opera has no such masterpiece of its kind to show. Massenet's _Manon_ was produced in 1884, and in the fulness of time Puccini turned to the same story, and after planning his own _scenario_, commissioned Domenico Oliva--dramatic critic of the _Journal d'Italia_ of Rome, and author of a play _Robespierre_ which had attained no little success--to write the "book." This was afterwards so drastically altered and remodelled by Puccini, in consultation with Ricordi, the publisher, that in justice to Oliva, his name as the author of the libretto was removed from the published score.
It was produced in 1893 at the Regio Theatre, Turin, on the 1st of February, conducted by Alexander Pomé, and cast as follows:
_Manon_ FERRANI. _The Dancing Master_ CERESOLI. _Des Grieux_ CREMONINI. _Lescaut_ MORO. _Geronte_ POLONINI. _Edmund_ RASSINI.