The Rake’s Progress

After settling in the United States, Stravinsky discovered the series of paintings known as A Rake’s Progress by William Hogarth which retrace the dissolute life of a libertine in 18th-century England. The libretto adds the Mephistophelian figure of Nick Shadow, the damned soul of Tom Rakewell. 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 Händel. The playwright Simon McBurney and the conductor Eivind Gullberg Jensen repaints this Rake's progress "full of superb stagecraft and excellent singing, beautiful to behold” (Financial Times).