Opera in 3 acts and an epilogue
Libretto: W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman [Based loosely on the eight paintings and engravings A Rake's Progress (1733-1735) of William Hogarth which Stravinsky had seen on May 2, 1947 in a Chicago exhibition]
First performance: September 11, 1951, Venice
Recorded: 1975, Glyndebourne Festival Opera
First performed in 1951 at the theatre La Fenice, Venedig, the opera The Rake's Progress was given its first British performance by Glyndebourne Opera. This recording is the famous and striking 1975 John Cox production which has been described as "brilliant stroke" (The Daily Telegraph) and as "a virtuoso piece of production and design".
The designer on the production was the British painter David Hockney, one of today's leading artists. His highly individual sets, based on the Hogarth's series of prints, reflect perfectly the "spikiness" of the music, combined with the underlying tenderness of the theme of true love.
"Hockney's approach, even while stealing prime attention, is well suited to the icy artificiality and mannered wit of the Auden-Kallman libretto and the emotional pendulum of Stravinsky's music; and it makes an ideal background for John Cox's barbed, scrupulously characterized and timed production which revels in the absurdities of the action, chills the marrow in the Churchyard scene, but does not deny Anne her sweetness, old Trulove his staid benevolence, or indeed Nick Shadow his attractive qualities" (The Times)
Anne - Felicity Lott
Tom Rakewell - Leo Goeke
Trulove, Anne's father - Richard van Allan
Nick Shadow - Samuel Ramey
Baba the Turk - Rosalind Elias
Mother Goose - Nuala Willis
Sellem, an auctionees - John Fryatt
Keeper of the Madhouse - Thomas Lawlor
Stage Design: David Hockney! |
[ NTSC ]