The better Manon

On the 5th March, I went to see The Royal Ballet’s Manon. I was meant to see don Quixote in the autumn, but a subsequently cancelled train strike meant we decided to rebook when it was offered.

I really didn’t want to see Manon at all, having first watched it in about 2007 and found the storyline repellent; it can be summed up as “gold digging prostitute follows money rather than love, and starves to death in a penal colony”. I thought it was everything that is wrong with ballet, carrying on with the theme of the victim woman who seeks redemption in Prince Charming, but can only find it if she is pure of heart. The beauty of the shapes of the dancer’s body becomes just another way of objectifying the woman. Men’s choreography is all strength and power, while women wisp and drape in willowy complexity.

It is hard to believe that the same person who decided to make this storyline into a ballet also choreographed Requiem, which I’m a bit disappointed I can’t see next month.

And yet despite being much more irritated by all this as a middle aged woman than I ever was in my 20s, Melissa Hamilton somehow pulls this off and turns the role into one of strength. Maybe it helps that she’s now in her 30s, but she owns this part, and emphasises the non-choices that the character has. The character is merely accepting the same sort of patronage that gave rise to ballet in the first place. Ballet was court entertainment, and it still is. Ballerinas marry bankers, and their Instagram feeds are full of parties in gilded halls. How else can an artist who needs to live in at least zone 2 in London live a life that enables them to focus on their art? The story of Manon is merely the story of the artistic life through the centuries.

I still dislike the ending, and dislike the weak choreography of her death scene; even the end of Swan Lake gives the swan more power than the dying waif that Manon becomes. But it is redeemed by the captivating shenanigans of the drunken parties, and the visceral realities of the choices she makes. It is rare for a ballet role to seem like a real person that you can imagine existed, and the last time I saw it was probably with Darcy Bussell, who didn’t seem to elicit the same empathy. Melissa Hamilton seems to inhabit the character; the partnership and chemistry with the rather supporting role of Calvin Richardson’s debut as Des Grieux was also excellent.