First is the disenfranchisement of middle-class youth as personified in Lescaut. Debuting in the role is Kosuke Okumura, who shrewdly captures Lescaut’s cynical essence. The curtains open on stark, grey sets, ragged clothing for a backdrop. Okumura slumps alone in the spotlight. Okumura’s opening despair provides an important glimpse of Lescaut’s humanity. As the stage floods with dancers representing a mixed range of class, from beggars to courtesans, aristocrats to merchants, Okumura/ Lescaut’s despair morphs to a hidden rage. 

Okumura hobnobs with the elite, dallies with his mistress, dances with the commoners. All throughout, his surly dissatisfaction with the restrictions of his class are revealed in telling asides, like when he suddenly shoves his flirting mistress, danced with calculating verve by Yuri Kimura. Okumura’s contradicting solo perfectly distills Lescaut’s frustrations. Flourishing leaps speak of unreachable dreams, and the topsy-turvy cartwheeling spins and splits of the commoners he briefly joins cannot satisfy him. It’s no surprise he seeks to monetize his sister’s beauty as a way up. 

Ayako Ono as Manon delights and repels from the moment she enters. Joyful and fresh, there is something nevertheless performative in her wild affection to her brother. It is obvious from Ono’s interpretation that Manon shares her sibling’s malcontent, enchanted as she is by the materialism of the demimonde and the attention she attracts. Ono’s Manon is much more interesting—and modern—than a simple ingénue pimped by a cad. Similarly, Okumura characterizes Lescaut not as a villain, but as Manon’s own temptations manifest.