Opera · Opera in English

The Rake's Progress

11 September 1951, Teatro La Fenice, Venice

Igor Stravinsky · libretto by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, after Hogarth

Stravinsky's only full-length opera, and the summit of his neoclassical period, is an English-language morality tale in three acts and an epilogue. A country idler is led to London, a brothel, a grotesque marriage and bankruptcy by a servant who is the Devil, wins his soul back at cards in a graveyard, and is struck mad. The model is Hogarth's eight-painting series; the musical model is Mozart, down to harpsichord recitative and set numbers.

How to spot them

▸Eighteenth-century England; a Faustian servant called Shadow who claims his wages after a year and a day
▸Numbered arias, ensembles and choruses with recitative accompanied by harpsichord — Mozart pastiche written in 1951
▸A bearded lady from a fairground becomes the hero's wife and is silenced by a wig dropped over her head
▸A card game in a churchyard for a soul; the loser is condemned to hell and takes his revenge by sending the winner mad
▸It ends in Bedlam, and then with the cast stepping forward to deliver the moral

Arias & moments — listen

"Since it is not by merit we rise or fall" — an idle young man wishes for money and a stranger appears (1951)

Tom Rakewell's opening aria; Nick Shadow enters announcing an unexpected inheritance

"I go to him" — a girl left behind in the country resolves to follow her lover to London (1951)

Anne Trulove's Act 1 scene-and-cabaletta, the great soprano number of the score

"Love, too frequently betrayed" — a cavatina sung in a brothel presided over by Mother Goose (1951)

Tom's cavatina; the whores and roaring boys answer with 'Lanterloo'

A bearded lady from a fairground is married for no reason but to prove the hero free (1951)

Baba the Turk, mezzo-soprano; Shadow's argument is that only an act without desire or duty is truly free

A machine is unveiled that is supposed to turn stones into bread and save the world (1951)

The fraudulent baroque machine that ruins Tom and his investors

"Who hears me, knows me" — an auctioneer sells off a bankrupt's effects, including his wife (1951)

Sellem the auctioneer, a tenor; when the wig is lifted, Baba resumes her sentence mid-word

Three cards are cut in a graveyard at midnight to decide who owns a soul (1951)

Queen of hearts, two of spades, queen of hearts again; Tom wins, and Shadow strikes him insane

"Gently, little boat" — a madman in an asylum believes himself Adonis and is sung to by Venus (1951)

The Bedlam scene; Anne's lullaby, then the mourning chorus of madmen after Tom dies

Quick-fire facts

•Stravinsky saw Hogarth's series A Rake's Progress at a Chicago exhibition in 1947 and decided at once to make an opera of it; the eight original paintings hang in Sir John Soane's Museum, London.
•Aldous Huxley suggested W. H. Auden as librettist; Auden brought in his partner Chester Kallman, and the two shared the credit.
•The premiere at La Fenice on 11 September 1951 was conducted by Stravinsky, with Robert Rounseville as Tom, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf as Anne, Otakar Kraus as Nick Shadow and Jennie Tourel as Baba the Turk.
•It is in three acts and an epilogue, and is Stravinsky's only full-length opera; soon afterwards he turned to serialism.
•The recitatives are accompanied by harpsichord, and the orchestra is a Mozart-sized one with the addition of the harpsichord.
•The epilogue is delivered in front of the curtain by five principals, who sing: 'For idle hands and hearts and minds the Devil finds a work to do.'
•Nick Shadow serves 'a year and a day' and then claims his wages — the soul of his master.
•David Hockney's designs for the 1975 Glyndebourne production, in cross-hatching after Hogarth's engravings, are among the most famous opera designs of the century.
•The card-game scene is scored with the Devil's fiddle: Shadow accompanies himself on a solo violin as he loses.

Drill it — 9 cards

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Sources

Boosey & Hawkes — The Rake's Progress
Grove Music Online (Oxford Music Online) — Stravinsky, Igor: The Rake's Progress
Paul Griffiths — Igor Stravinsky: The Rake's Progress (Cambridge Opera Handbooks)