By Igor Stravinsky
A revival of the 1975 Festival Production
Sung in English with Supertitles
An Introduction to The Rake's Progress
Discover Stravinsky's operatic fable with interviews from designer David Hockney, conductor Vladimir Jurowski and director John Cox.
© Glyndebourne Productions 2010. Produced by Karen McCallion and Simon Yapp
Clips with kind permission of Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Hamburg.
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Supported by:
and Carol and Paul Collins
Inspired by William Hogarth’s famous cycle of satirical prints, and blessed
with one of the cleverest librettos in all opera – courtesy of the poet W. H.
Auden and his friend Chester Kallman – Stravinsky’s 1951 opera (whose
Venice premiere was, coincidentally, directed by Glyndebourne’s then
producer, Carl Ebert) is a modern musical morality play. The ‘hero’ Tom
Rakewell, signs a Faustian pact with the devil, swaps the simple country
life and a devoted sweetheart for the vain pursuit of big-city bonuses and
increasingly exotic pleasures (climaxing in a loveless marriage to the
bearded lady from a local fair) and ends up bankrupt and insane in Bedlam.
Framed within David Hockney’s delightfully post-Hogarthian cross-hatched
designs, John Cox’s 1975 Glyndebourne Festival production proved an
instant classic. Last revived for millennium year, it is now conducted for
the First time at Glyndebourne by the Festival’s Music Director, Vladimir
Jurowski. Finnish tenor Topi Lehtipuu and Swedish soprano Miah Persson
– previously heard together as Ferrando and Fiordiligi in the original 2006
run of Nicholas Hytner’s Così fan tutte – are reunited as poor mad Tom and
his true love Anne, with Matthew Rose (winner of the John Christie Award
in 2006) as the Mephistophelian tempter, Nick Shadow.
Edition by kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes
Music Publishers Ltd
Performance schedule Festival 2010
Key
* = Pre-performance talk available in the in the Ebert Room.
Creative team
Conductor Vladimir Jurowski
Director John Cox
Designer David Hockney
Lighting Designer Robert Bryan
Cast
Father Trulove Clive Bayley
Anne Trulove Miah Persson
Tom Rakewell Topi Lehtipuu
Nick Shadow Matthew Rose
Mother Goose Susan Gorton
Baba the Turk Elena Manistina
Sellem Graham Clark
London Philharmonic Orchestra
The Glyndebourne Chorus