Act III opens at the port of New Orleans, where the lively ensemble dances offer a cruel contrast to the misery of the women deported from France. Manon arrives among the prisoners, exhausted and supported by Des Grieux, who poses as her husband. The scene in the Gaoler’s room is perhaps the most gripping of the evening. Fabien Révillion is chilling, almost carved out of stone, his impenetrable presence making the character’s brutality and abuse of power all the more disturbing in the face of Park’s helpless Manon. Moreau responds with wholehearted dramatic commitment, as his beloved finds herself caught in despair between the two men. After killing the Gaoler, Des Grieux escapes with Manon into the Louisiana swamps. Beneath the hanging Spanish moss, the figures of their Parisian past return to haunt them, like a procession of spectres in a lucid nightmare.

The final pas de deux, technically formidable and harrowing, brings together Park’s extraordinary bodily control and Moreau’s solidity. MacMillan’s fascination with figure skating emerges in the gliding movements, daring lifts and Manon’s signature multiple tours en l’air ending in her partner’s arms. The choreography demands perfect synchronicity between the two dancers even as Manon’s body, barely alive, surrenders to exhaustion. Yet, for all the brilliance of their final encounter, it is their curtain call that proves even more moving. In the looks and gestures the two exchange, there is a sense of mutual gratitude and affection, and the boundaries between dancers and characters blur once more.

The outsider is a recurring figure in MacMillan’s work. He was himself a “different drummer,” as Jann Parry titled her biography of the choreographer. Born into a working-class family, he often felt at odds with the ballet establishment. Manon is the outsider par excellence. As MacMillan himself observed, it is not the fear but the shame of poverty that drives her towards a world to which she does not belong, ultimately leading to her destruction. But she is hardly alone in her alienation. Des Grieux is a young aristocrat drawn into poverty and crime, while Lescaut is both a product and a victim of the society he tries to exploit. Social divisions shape their lives and turn them against one another. They are lonely figures whose paths cross in furtive encounters, even as crowds fill the stage around them.

MacMillan’s choreography is almost expressionistic, with classical ballet reshaped into a language of heightened emotion. Apart from the virtuosity of certain lifts and catches, particularly in the final pas de deux, the demands are less technical than interpretive. Beyond the gliding movements and arabesques, what remains is a sense of dance so inseparable from the drama that the story takes precedence. Think of Manon’s characteristic gesture, her elbows framing her face and her arms bent back behind her head, so simple yet suggestive of youthful recklessness, seduction and self-indulgence. Perhaps this is why MacMillan’s work still speaks to us: within a colossal historical spectacle, he finds in the smallest gestures a way to tell stories of human fragility that remain painfully familiar.