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Igor STRAVINSKY (1882–1971) The Rake’s Progress (1951)
Hilde Güden
(soprano) – Anne Truelove; Blanche Thebom (mezzo) – Baba
the Turk; Eugene Conley (tenor) – Tom Rakewell; Mack Harrell
(baritone) – Nick Shadow; Martha Lipton (mezzo) – Mother
Goose; Norman Scott (bass) – Truelove; Paul Franke (tenor) – Sellem;
Lawrence Davidson (baritone) – Keeper of the Madhouse
Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra/Igor Stravinsky
rec. 1, 8, 10 March 1953, Columbia 30th Street
Studio, New York City NAXOS 8.111266-67 [73:25
+ 72:25]
On a visit to the Chicago Art Institute in May 1947 Igor Stravinsky
saw an exhibition of works by the English artist William
Hogarth, including a series of canvases under the collective
title The Rake’s Progress, painted 1732–1733. The
motifs had been circulated in the shape of engravings. The
story about the decline and fall of Tom Rakewell had already
been the basis of a ballet by Ninette de Valois for the Vic-Wells
Company in 1935. The Handelian pastiche score was by Gavin
Gordon.
Stravinsky also saw the possibilities and decided to write a number
opera with recitatives, accompanied by harpsichord. The music
was by and large in the same neo-classicist style that he
had first used for his ballet Pulcinella, based on
the works of the 18th century composer Pergolesi,
almost thirty years earlier. The libretto was worked out
in close collaboration with English poet W. H. Auden and
the work was premiered, after some initial trouble, on 11
September 1951 in Venice in connection with the fourteenth
biennale of contemporary music. Though the reception was
mixed opera houses around the world queued up to get the
rights – a brand new opera by the greatest living composer,
and one that had melodies as well! Within a year it was produced
in Edinburgh, Geneva, Paris, Strasbourg, Vienna and in several
German opera-houses. In February 1953 it reached the Metropolitan
where Fritz Reiner conducted it and George Balanchine was
the director. A few weeks later Columbia recorded the work
with the Metropolitan cast but with the composer conducting.
He re-recorded it a decade later for CBS and there is also
a recording from Venice in 1951.
The action of the opera takes place in England in the 18th century.
In the first act Tom and Anne are happy together. They are
in Anne’s father’s summer-house when Nick Shadow appears
and informs Tom that he has inherited a fortune and has to
go to London. There he leads a licentious life with regular
visits to Mother Goose’s brothel. Anne decides to go to London
and find him. In act 2 Tom is unhappy and Nick advises him
to marry, Baba, who is the bearded lady at a circus. Anne
finds Tom but he says that she has to forget him, since he
has married Baba. The marriage is unhappy and after a row
Tom silences Baba by thrusting a wig over her face. Nick
appears with a fake machine that can make bread out of stones
and the two decide to make a fortune with the help of the
machine. In the third act Tom is ruined and his belongings
are sold on an auction, including Baba, who has been collecting
dust for many a moon. Tom and Nick, who of course is Tom’s
evil genius, play cards in a churchyard. The stake is Tom’s
soul. Tom eventually wins and Nick burns in Hell but before
that he casts a spell of insanity upon Tom. He is brought
to Bedlam, the madhouse, where he believes he is Adonis,
waiting for the arrival of Venus. Anne comes and sings a
lullaby and Tom falls asleep. Truelove takes Anne away and
Tom dies.
It is a bleak tale and the mourning chorus that is sung after
Tom’s
death is poignant but it is followed by a short epilogue
which is in sharp contrast to the sorrowful chorus, rhythmic
and pregnant, where the five main characters explain the
moral: “For idle hands and hearts and minds, the Devil finds
a work to do.”
Stravinsky’s music is just as many-faceted as the abrupt turns of
the tale. It is however written with good understanding of
the human voice and is eminently singable, even though his
setting of the actual words is sometimes awkward. Some of
the arias are also highly attractive separately: Tom’s Here
I stand, Shadow’s I was never saner and his departure
in the graveyard I burn, I burn! I freeze!, Baba’s
song As I was saying and, most of all, Anne Truelove’s
scene that concludes the first act, No word from Tom … I
go, I go to him with glittering coloratura.
The Metropolitan cast in 1953 was a strong one with some
of the best home-grown singers singing in their mother-tongue
and with
the delightful Austrian Mozart and Strauss specialist Hilde
Güden as a highly idiomatic Anne. The orchestra and chorus,
with the music in their bones after intense rehearsals under
the demanding Fritz Reiner, are excellent. Stravinsky’s conducting
gives the recording a certain authenticity, even though it
is far from self-evident that a composer is the best interpreter
of his own music. Be that as it may, the playing is crisp
and rhythmically alert, recorded in excellent mono sound
in dryish acoustics that seem at one with the rather chilly
music. The jagged rhythms of the choral opening of act 1
scene 2 are especially well reproduced and once again credit
must be given to Mark Obert-Thorn for his excellent restoration
work.
Hilde Güden’s Anne is warm and affectionate. The big scene in act
one is as good as any I have heard - with the exception of
Margareta Hallin, the first Swedish Anne Truelove. The lullaby
in the madhouse is simple, caring and beautiful. Eugene Conley
was one of the leading tenors at the Met in the 1950s, where
he made his debut as Gounod’s Faust, and his virile, bright-toned
and lyrical tenor is a splendid instrument for Tom. He is
especially impressive in the aria that opens act 2. Mack
Harrell, father of cellist Lynn Harrell, has a baritone of
similar qualities, warm and rounded, and he portrays the
cynical Nick Shadow’s machinations with chilling precision.
The only objection one could possibly level at him is that
he doesn’t sound evil enough. On the other hand malice in
disguise is often more dangerous than blatantly unmasked
wickedness. We can also savour Norman Scott’s deep and sonorous
bass as Truelove and Martha Lipton as a fruity Mother Goose
though she has little enough to sing. Blanche Thebom is a
formidable Baba and Paul Franke, well-known comprimario at
the Met, is a splendid Sellem in the auction scene.
There are at least half a dozen more modern recordings of The
Rake’s
Progress, none of them without merit. That said, there
is a special frisson about this first studio recording
with a splendid American cast direct from live performances
and the imprimatur of the composer conducting. There are
no texts and translations but a cued synopsis that works
as an acceptable guide through the many turns of the story.
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