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.
Dutch National Opera, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and The Stanislavsky Theatre in collaboration with Complicité.
© Pascal Victor/ArtComPress
Dates
Live streamed online 11 July. Available on this website until October 2017.
5 - 18 July 2017People
- 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