Massenet: Manon / Alagna, Gheorghiu, Van Dam

Thomas Beecham once stated that he would "happily give up all the Brandenburg Concertos for Manon". He might also have thrown in a couple of Beethoven symphonies and the late Mozart operas if he had heard what Angela Gheorghiu makes of the title role. She's stunning. If you want a Manon who is transparently charming from the first note, whose venal flaws are presented with honesty and insight, whose final self-recrimination is heart-breaking, then Gheorghiu is your woman. And when the dramatic portrayal is underpinned with that technique--the pianissimo top notes, the exquisite phrasing, the powerful lower register, the glorious full, rounded sound--it's impossible not to be drawn into this wonderful reading. Her husband Roberto Alagna, if he doesn't quite have her silken tone, is still an excellent partner and gives a real sense of des Grieux's early callowness being transformed by suffering into emotional maturity. Pappano draws some lush playing from the band, and sensibly avoids treating the 18th-century imitations as frivolous pastiche. It's almost possible to believe from the lightness of the early comic scenes that the ending will be a happy one, such is the integrity of his approach--and it makes the terrible close all the more harrowing.