The Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires continued its 2026 season with a series of concert performances of Puccini’s “Manon Lescaut” at the Auditorio Nacional of the Palacio Libertad.

The concert hall is a marvelous sight with its sleek wooden aesthetic and capacity for 1,750 audience members. And for the orchestra and chorus, the latter of which is situated at the back of the auditorium in a seated area above the central stage, the acoustics are very favorable. Throughout the performance, the chorus needed only to whisper to come through cleanly. Choral soloists sounded particularly rich in the space. The orchestra also benefitted greatly from the auditorium’s setup, their sound volcanic at their loudest, but also clear in more delicate moments. Among these was the Intermezzo that precedes the third act, the chamber music structure of its opening allowed to flutter in the space delicately.

But the space has its caveats. Any time the chorus sang above a mezzo-forte, the sound could be piercing and aggressive; that’s how strong the resonance came through. It wasn’t a question of the chorus’ quality as much as how the acoustic explodes at the listener.

But perhaps the biggest issue is how none of these circumstances favored the vocal soloists.

Placed at the front of the stage, as is customary for concert performances, they rarely stood a chance against the musical forces they were contending with. Act one and two are particularly replete with ensembles and choral interjections, not to mention very busy orchestral playing and it could be frustrating to try and pick out the soloists amidst the maelstrom of sound. While Act three has a great deal of chorus, the balance here was stronger overall. Act four was far and away the best act because it only features two soloists and no chorus and it was clear that conductor Henrik Nánási was able to be more accommodating to the soloists through this final quarter hour.

Speaking of Nánási, I don’t want to put the balance issues solely on him, but in a concert version where the music is at the forefront of the performance, someone has to be responsible for what does and doesn’t work. The balance issues may begin with the hall itself, but it falls on the musical director to adjust accordingly. If the orchestra is overpowering your two soloists during their big duet at the climax of Act two, it’s on him to pull them back a bit. It would have been interesting to consider putting the soloists where the chorus was. Even if visually it distances the audience from the drama, sound-wise it would have helped given how clear the sound of choral soloists came through.

That said, the flow of the performance and the overall quality of the music-making, especially from the orchestra was notable. The violins struggled a bit in some tricky passage work during the second act, but otherwise, Puccini’s music was allowed its extremes of emotions. Tempi were balanced. Unlike other contemporary conductors that seem to be on an endless mission to indulge, over-articulate, and over-gesticulate Puccini’s work, Nánási played it pretty straight, to the benefit of the music and especially the soloists. It never felt like he needed to be the center of attention to pull it off. Arias were the best examples of this. Singers came through clearly in their solo moments. The fourth act was where it felt that it all came together, mainly because of how connected he was with the orchestra and his two soloists.

In the title role was Italian soprano Chiara Isotton. She delivered a tremendous performance and even though there was no real staging to speak about, she did her utmost to create the character. Of all the voices, hers was the only one able to cut through the thick orchestra and chorus, particularly throughout Act two where the balance issues were at their most unfortunate. Despite the chorus and orchestra’s joint potency, she came through cleanly and securely. And even though it required titanic power from her, when the music scaled back for the lighter sections of the act, there was flexibility and delicacy in her sound. Her utterances of “Manon Lescaut mi chiamo” were silky and smooth. She took her space and time at the start of “In quelle trine morbide,” her voice soft. But as the music developed throughout the aria, her sound built rapidly and soared at the climax, her high notes resplendent. And she never relented from this intensity. The duet with tenor Francesco Pio Galasso was gloriously sung, the soprano’s intensity matched by her partner as they two did their best to ride over the massive orchestral sound.

But it was in Act three where the soprano took her performance to the next level. From the start of the Intermezzo, she was magnetic. She just sat there but you could see the focus, the intensity, the pain. It was here where the character of Manon came alive and from that moment forward Isotton’s immersion with the drama took you into the dramatic space with her. She beautifully portrayed Manon’s sorrow throughout the act, her voice shining throughout the concertante as she reached out for Galasso, standing on the opposite end of the podium. These bits of physicality added to the sense of actual space.

She turned up that intensity even further in Act four. Her physicality expressed that of a woman on her last legs. There was desperation in her singing, most notably during “Sola, perduta abandonata,” where the soprano’s darker colors and aggressive singing gave the aria not only desperation but bitterness and a tinge of fury. Her highs were as vigorous and rounder than they had been the entire evening. Her “No! No! Non voglio morir!” up to the high B flat was some of the most gut-wrenching singing I have heard in this aria performed by anyone. Overall, this interpretation was of the highest order from an artist that is becoming a major star in the opera world.

Opposite Isotton was tenor Francesco Pio Galasso as Renato Des Grieux. Galasso’s tenor took some time to truly ground into the performance. While he displayed a polished legato line throughout “Donna no vidi mai” elegantly, his voice sounded a bit overwhelmed in the high tessitura, at times coming off as pushed, throaty, and unsupported. Based on what would transpire later in the night, a lot of it had to do with the space and the orchestra because by the time the third act came around, he was a completely different singer.

“Ah! Non v’avvicinate!… No! no! Pazzo son” was delivered with tremendous solidity and intensity, the tenor’s phrasing more aggressive and accented as the aria wore on, allowing us to feel Des Grieux’s despair. There was a confidence that had been missing in the rest of his performance and his tenor came through like a beam of sound over the orchestra. It was by the far his finest moment and when given the chance, the audience raved for his visceral display. It didn’t end there. He matched Isotton’s intensity in Act four and even if his voice strained a bit on the high B flat on “Ah! Manon!” early in the act, he recovered for subsequent high notes and an interpolated high C alongside Isotton a few moments later. Throughout the act the tenor displayed a nervous helplessness that he perfectly conveyed with his increasingly pointed and forceful singing. His final passage before running off to search for help, “Tutto il mio sangue per la tua vita” perfectly embodied this and was delivered with a brilliant upper register. Also worthy of note was how he supported Isotton’s dramatic immersion by also giving into it. He was rather stiff in the early going and started to loosen up in Act three. But in Act four, he was holding her, clinging to her, feeding off her energy to really make us feel that the two characters were in the middle of an endless desert. When Des Grieux’s tears are mentioned, you could believe that these two were on the verge of them.

Baritone Junhyeok Felix Park delivered a solid turn as Lescaut, his sound coming through well throughout the performance. He was sturdy and fluid in his phrasing. Ricardo Seguel, as Geronte, and Andés Cofré, as Edmondo, sang well but were often victims to the sound imbalance throughout the night. Ramiro Pérez, who performed as the dance master, and Lidice Robinson, the musician, benefitted tremendously from the generous acoustics in the chorus’ perch. Nonetheless, both sang with refinement and confidence in their respective roles.

One final note on presentations, surtitles were placed on two small screens near the very top of the hall. It probably benefitted the people at the top of the hall. But those in the orchestra sections, you needed binoculars to have any chance of seeing them clearly.

On the whole, this performance, while plagued by odd acoustics, featured the definition of a star turn from Isotton with Galasso growing into the performance and also delivering some memorable moments. That alone is worth the price of admission.