The love story of Manon Lescaut and the Chevalier des Grieux is a lyric tragedy of innocence corrupted in the pleasure-seeking world of Paris in the early 18th century.

The several pas de deux are among the highlights of Manon, and in them Kenneth MacMillan charts the downfall of the lovers, from the first impassioned effusions of feeling to the desperate flare of the third act when Manon's emotions burn high like the last guttering candle.