Adieu, notre petite table (Manon)

Manon was first performed at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 19 January 1884, to a libretto by Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille after Abbé Prévost's novel of 1731. Massenet wrote much of the score in the Netherlands, in a house where Prévost was said to have worked on the book. He kept the opéra comique frame but replaced most of the spoken dialogue with melodrama — speech over orchestra — which lets the music follow a character who changes her mind constantly. Adieu, notre petite table is the moment Manon takes leave of a life she is about to abandon.