The libretto for this work by playwright Henri Meilhac and journalist Philippe Gille is based on L'histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by Abbé Prévost. Retaining the novel's eighteenth-century setting Massenet's opera offers noisy crowd scenes passionate duets and tense melodramas which certainly pleased the Opera-Comique's patrons - it was an instant popular success. This is the Schirmer libretto with an Englishtranslation by George and Phyllis Mead.
