Manon Lescaut, mah nawn lehs koh, is an opera in four acts by the Italian composer Giacomo Puccini. The libretto (text) in Italian was written by Luigi Illica, Giuseppe Giacosa, and others. It was based on a French novel, The Story of the Chevalier Des Grieux and of Manon Lescaut, written in 1731 by the Abbe Antoine-Francois Prevost (1697-1763). The same novel had earlier been used as the basis of the 1884 opera Manon by the French composer Jules Massanet. Puccini's Manon Lescaut received its first performance at Turin on Feb. 1, 1893.