Last Updated on June 9, 2025
The Rake clears up
Glyndebourne’s 48-year-old production of The Rake’s Progress has returned with style. This is no cobwebbed old war horse to dust off and re-use but an astonishing synthesis which still feels modern.
The story of The Rake’s Progress is, at surface level, inspired by a blend of Hogarth’s series of paintings of the same title. The paintings depict a young man coming to fortune, spraying it up the wall and eventually dying in a madhouse. He is watched at every stage by a long-suffering childhood sweetheart. This is, however, an opera of layers. An additional Faustian character (Shadow) drags the hero Tom Rakewell down his ruinous path, offering his “service” for an unstated price. In adopting an alternating recitative/ aria format, Stravinsky and Librettists W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman created a staggeringly antediluvian arrangement for the mid-20th Century.
Stepping out of the zeitgeist in this way allowed them to parody opera and the suspension of disbelief in theatre in general. With 4th wall breaking characters and great veins of pantomime and humour it’s an incredibly entertaining show to watch.
Musically, while there is a fair bit of what Schoenberg described as “Little Modernsky (…) sporting a wig of authentic false hair in order to impersonate Papa Bach” (AKA neoclassicism) This is not a bad thing, the baroque and classical era themes and styles blend seamlessly with Stravinsky’s 20th-century sonorities to produce a Janus-faced score staring forward and backwards. Hints of minimalism emerge and fade away.
Some notable arias such as “I Go, I Go To Him” use the baroque da Capo lyrical arrangement and ornamentation but in their colour and accessibility seem to presage elements of Disney’s style. (Walt Disney of course was aware of Stravinsky’s music, butchering The Rite of Spring for the score of Fantasia). The score is as much a self-commentary as the words.
This commentary is echoed in David Hockney’s reality-altering set designs. Drawn with a limited pallet and imitation etched cross hatch, Hockney’s sets espouse the same wit and riffs on reality, morality and modernity as the opera. The sets ravishingly play with perspective and look deliberately papery. They remind you that you are watching theatre and yet it’s impossible not to get sucked into their world. Alone they are an astonishing, living piece of artwork. Photographs cannot do them justice, they have to be appreciated as a symbiotic part of the whole.
Director John Cox’s production of The Rake’s Progress allows another seamless symbiosis, no movement or action feels out of place within the whole. The London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Robin Ticciati were spot on with balance throughout, never drowning out the singers and still retaining colour and movement. Deftly defying Stravinsky’s own claim that music is “essentially powerless to express anything at all.”
Thomas Atkins as Tom Rakewell ticked every box. Atkins captured every downward step of the decline, slightly over-emoting at times. In quiet scenes, Atkins seems to pluck perfect notes effortlessly from the air but when needed there is an avalanche of force to his voice.
While watching Louise Adler in Anne Trulove’s scene at the end of Act I, I had the most bizarre sensation. It was as if the world was rotated through 90 degrees and I was looking down on the stage, dragged towards it by gravity. Self-indulgence aside, Adler is a very capable expressive singer who flowed easily with the coloratura.
Sam Carl made an engaging characterisation of Nick Shadow. Shadow’s mirth, faux generosity and pantomime cruelty came across perfectly with Carl’s acting. Vocally, Carl under-projects and doesn’t have as much colour or richness as some baritones. That said, even Verdi sometimes preferred imperfect singers who were excellent actors for the sake of drama.
Rupert Charlesworth as Sellem was a hilarious po-faced, posturing, preening auctioneer with carefully clipped high notes matching the costume. Alastair Miles as Father Trulove was trenchant and forthright. Alisa Kolosova as the flouncing, bearded Baba the Turk was sympathetic and amusing while still managing to grasp all of the lower notes of the Mezzo range. Carole Wilson was a disturbingly rapacious matronly Mother Goose perfectly capable of capturing an audience (as well as a prey rake)
With considerably discounted under 30’s tickets and a friendly atmosphere, forget any preconceived misconceptions of snobbery. This is a place of joy. The only downside to watching The Rake’s Progress at Glyndebourne was going home and being whipped by the crushing bathos of perfection’s end and reality’s resumption.
The Rake’s Progress will run at Glyndebourne until August 27th
Glyndebourne, Lewes, East Sussex, BN8 5UU
glyndebourne.com
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