Lighting Observation
Time: 10pm on Wednesday, at the Met
Objective Description: I watched the lights fade during the last scene of Manon Lescaut, where the title character dies.
Subjective Description: It was the last scene of the opera Manon Lescaut, and Manon and her lover were stuck in a wasteland. She was weak and dying. The light in this scene was pale blue and pale orange, and throughout the scene, the colors slowly faded to monotone colors. It was so subtle that I didn’t even pick up on it until Manon said her last words and died in her lover’s arms. It was then that I realized all of the color had left the scene and everything was somewhere between black and white. I was amazed with this lighting choice and thought it mirrored death perfectly.