Classical and Jazz: Preview - Igor Stravinsky's Rake's Progress at the ROH
Published: 28 January 2010
By HELEN LAWRENCE
STRAVINSKY'S inspiration for The Rake’s Progress was Hogarth’s famous engravings, and Mozart. WH Auden and his partner Chester Kallman crafted the libretto, tracing the downfall of a newly rich young man who abandons his faithful love, squanders his money on loose living in London and ends up in Bedlam.
It is an ingenious pastiche ending in the manner of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, with the house lights up and the main characters instructing the audience in the supposed moral of the story.
The production by Robert Lepage, first seen in 2007 at La Monnaie, Brussels, and now revived at the Royal Opera House, shifts the opera from 18th-century London to Hollywood in the 1950s. This morality tale of the past has definite messages for the celebrity and money-obsessed present. “Who cares a fig for Tory or Whig?” it asks.
Its theme of virtue corrupted is highly topical with its many references to City bankers and greed.
It doesn’t always maintain the momentum but, that said, there is still a great deal to enjoy, especially in the big crowd scenes.
The excellent cast are led by Toby Spence and Rosemary Joshua as the doomed young lovers; Kyle Ketelsen as Nick Shadow, and Patricia Bardon as Baba the Turk; and who but tenor Graham Clark, as Sellem, could enter doing a cartwheel and then sing!
Conductor Ingo Metzmacher brings out the brilliance of the piquant score and the chorus and orchestra are superb.
• The Rake’s Progress is at the Royal Opera House, tonight (Thursday), January 30 and February 1 and 3. Box office: 020 7304 4000. www.roh.org.uk