Partick Berger
Patrick Berger
Patrick Berger

Adapted from

William Hogarth

Libretto

Wystan Hugh Auden, Chester Simon Kallman

Conductor

Eivind Gullberg Jensen

Director

Simon McBurney

Dramaturge

Gerard McBurney

Design

Michael Levine

Costume design

Christina Cunningham

Lighting design

Paul Anderson

Video design

Will Duke

Choreographer & associate stage director

Leah Hausman

Assistant stage director

Josie Daxter

Music assistant

Case Scaglione

Pianist & vocal coach

Alphonse Cemin, Nino Pavlenichvili

Stage director second assistant

Luna Muratti

Costumes assistant

Nathalie Pallandre

Set design assistant

Alejandra Gonzales

Video assistant

Philippine Laureau

Anne Trulove

Julia Bullock

Tom Rakewell

Paul Appleby

Nick Shadow

Kyle Ketelsen

Keeper of the Madhouse / Nick Shadow 2

Evan Hughes

Trulove

David Pittsinger

Mother Goose

Hilary Summers

Baba la Turque

Andrew Watts

Sellem

Alan Oke

Actors

Antony Antunes, Kirsty Arnold, Nichole Bird, Karl Fagerlund Brekke, Andrew Gardiner, Chihiro Kawasaki, Maxime Nourissat, Jami Reid-Quarrell, Gabriella Schmidt, Clemmie Sveaas

Chorus

English Voices

Chorus master

Tim Brown

Orchestra

Orchestre de Paris

After settling in the United States after World War II, Igor Stravinsky discovered the series of paintings known as A Rake’s Progress by the English painter, William Hogarth. The paintings retrace the dissolute life of a libertine in eighteenth century England in powerfully realistic, satirical detail. Stravinsky decided to turn it into an opera. The libretto by Auden and Kallman embellishes the story narrated by Hogarth by adding the Mephistophelian figure of Nick Shadow, the damned soul of the reprobate Tom Rakewell. Following a journey that takes him from the brothel to the auction house, the libertine finally ends up in the madhouse. Stravinsky adopts the codes of eighteenth century opera to score this enlightenment-era narrative. But the musical language, while evoking the memory of Mozart, also tips a nod to Rossini, Verdi and Handel, whose aesthetic he “unfolds” in a musical cubism that has lost none of its acerbity. 

 

"Full of superb stagecraft & excellent singing, beautiful to behold" ★★★★ Financial Times

 

Dutch National Opera, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence and The Stanislavsky Theatre in collaboration with Complicité.

 

Tour

2020

Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre
22 & 24 June
Book tickets

2019

Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre 19, 21, 23, 25 September 2019

2018

Dutch National Opera 1, 3, 6, 11, 15, 19, 21 February 2018

2017

Festival d'Aix-en-Provence 5, 7, 11, 14, 18 July 2017
Live streamed online 11 July. Available on this website until October 2017.