Opera Metamorphoses of the Story of Manon Lescaut

Abstract

In the article, the opera genre is comprehended in its two hypostases – as the one inheriting the mythological tradition through the plots and experience of literature, and in the dynamics of the manifestation of individual creative consciousness. The tendency to demythologize the opera genre did not exclude the typification of situational motifs genetically related to the myth, while giving rise to their variable plurality in the new socio-cultural and artistic-aesthetic conditions. As a result, the opera reveals the ability to operate with archetypes, drawing closer to the mythopoetic consciousness. The considered compositions by D. Auber, J. Massenet, G. Puccini, H. W. Henze demonstrate the variety of operametamorphoses of the story by Abbé Prévost. The path from the idealization of plot situations through the disclosure of the drama of feelings to the reduction of conflicts to the level of a tabloid story closes the circle of semantic overtones of the literary source.