Hans Werner Henze - BOULEVARD SOLITUDE (1952)

Boulevard Solitude is a lyric drama or opera in one act to a German libretto by Grete Weil after the play by Walter Jockisch, in its turn a modern retelling of Abbé Prévost’s 1731 novel Manon Lescaut. The piece is a reworking of the Manon Lescaut story, already adapted operatically by Auber, Massenet and Puccini, and here relocated to Paris after World War II where, as is noted in Grove, the focus of the story moves away from Manon and towards Armand des Grieux. It became Henze’s first fully-fledged opera. The work stands out for its strong jazz influences, from a composer who had hitherto been associated with twelve-tone technique. “...with a score that is a rich and strikingly beautiful mix of all that was musically fashionable in its time, it has remained one of his most often performed stage works.“ (Andrew Clements - The Guardian)Symphony Orchestra of the Gran Teatre del Liceu conducted by Zoltan : Nikolaus Lehnhoff