My belief that you cannot see a work unfold without finding some gem to pocket was not tested this year, and so ‘if you look, you will find’ remains my unchallenged maxim.
Manon Lescaut opens with two lines from Byron: “Why did he love her? Curious fool, be still! Is human love the fruit of human will?” This, too, is the ballet’s opening, and raison d'être.…Ruin lies ahead, of course, and that is largely, I suspect, why we love it.