VV(5)The Opera--what exactly happens...

[jill]

During the Act III of Manon Lescaut, this is when this happens.

(Groves Condensed Opera)
Le Havre. An open square near the port.
An intermezzo based on previously heard themes covers the time of
Manon's(maybe parallels Victoria, Hanne) imprisonment and the journey to
the French port. As a woman of loose character she is housed in a barracks
with prositutes awaiting departation to America. Lescaut, her
brother,(Porpentine) plans to procure her escape by bribing a guard, (is
this Max's request for money?? just a coincidince?) As Manon appears at a
grille, she and Des Grieux(roughly Goodfellow or maybe Porpentine in a way)
exchange words of love and hope while a Lamplighter passes by on his rounds
(Hanne as lampligher, more later) A shot is heard indicating that Lescaut's
plan has miscarried. One by one, the prostitutes and Manon are taken to the
ship, while a sergeant-at-arms calls their names and the crowd comment on
the appearance of each. Des Grieux prevails upon the ship's captain to take
him aboard in a solo, see p.61, "Guardate, pazzo son, guardate", and with a
reminiscense of the Act 2 duet, he falls into Manon's arms.

But a shot is heard...immediately prior to this, 

So obvious and striking is the "silence" in which this passage is
described.
Lepsius runs into the box 2. Goodfellow and Porpentine crush the symbolic
carpet on their way to the neighboring box (box 1 or 3 doesn't matter) The
colors of orange provide other symbols, for example the sun and the passage
of time of a sunset. Victoria runs into the box with Goodfellow and
Porpentine(or is it Hanne as previously postulated)? And witnesses or
experiences something and leaves, shaken after having cried for a while.
Goodfellow joins her and they run away. Porpentine/Hanne is separated from
Goodfellow and has a smoking pistol (phallic reference of course to go with
the flowered dress and the deflowering of Victoria) and he goes into box 2
with Lepsius. They struggle and you can only see half of them since the
curtain covers the other half of them... Porpentine or Hanne breaks his
spectacles and tries to turn his head toward the light, but someone else, a
mechanically moving sort of person who might be Bongo, but we don't know,
it might be Goodfellow for all we know, shoots him. Or perhaps he lights a
cigarrette and the Porpentine/Hanne just falls down and dies of natural
causes, but more than likely it is the former.

So this is the part where we say--who knows what happened, read it over and
over and over again. You try it, it's fun.