Igor STRAVINSKY (1882-1971)
The Rake’s Progress (1951) [2:20:00]
Anne Trulove - Miah Persson (soprano)
Tom Rakewell - Topi Lehtipuu (tenor)
Father Trulove - Clive Bayley (baritone)
Nick Shadow - Matthew Rose (baritone)
Mother Goose - Susan Gorton (mezzo)
Baba the Turk - Elena Manistina (mezzo)
Sellem - Graham Clark (tenor)
Keeper - Duncan Rock (bass)
The Glyndebourne Chorus
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Vladimir Jurowski
rec. live 18-19 December 2010, Glyndebourne Opera House
Picture: NTSC/16:9. Sound: PCM stereo, DTS 5.1 (5.0). Region:
0 (worldwide). Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish
OPUS ARTE DVD OA1062D [2:20:00 (opera) + 19:00 (extras)]
Among the weaknesses of The Rake’s Progress, as acknowledged by the
composer in the booklet accompanying his 1964 CBS – now Sony – recording of
the opera, is the fact that “the Epilogue is a little too ‘nifty’ (as Americans
say)”. I wonder if Americans really did say “nifty” in the sixties; and if
they did, was the sense in which Stravinsky was using the word quite the right
one? What would we say now? Slick? Whatever one might think of this Epilogue,
it seems to have taken quite a few of the 2010 Glyndebourne audience by surprise,
just as it will have done at La Fenice when the work was first performed in
1951. Perhaps Stravinsky was thinking as much of the libretto – a remarkable
piece of work by W H Auden and Chester Kallman – as he was of the music, but
nifty or not, the Epilogue is typical of an opera in which the sheer brilliance
of much of the music is a defining feature. The end of the brothel scene –
brilliantly staged here with a circular procession around the bed on which
is revealed the hideous Mother Goose, monstrously copulating atop an almost
comatose Tom Rakewell – is a further example of the composer’s remarkable
imagination and daring, as is the pastiche baroque sarabande that accompanies
Baba the Turk as she reveals her beard – complete with stripper’s teasing
– to her adoring public. There are weaker moments of course, both musically
and dramatically. I regret the composer’s decision to accompany much of the
graveyard scene, where Nick Shadow loses his prize and Tom loses his reason,
with the dryness of the harpsichord. Musically the opera is closest, in Stravinsky’s
output, to a work such as the Symphony in C, but the fact is that The
Rake’s Progress does seem to qualify for that much used but so rarely
accurate label, a work unlike any other.
The origins are to be found in the series of Hogarth paintings entitled A
Rake’s Progress. In an interview on the DVD, David Hockney confirms that
his stage designs, based almost entirely on parallel and crossing straight
lines, were inspired by techniques used when Hogarth’s paintings were later
engraved and published in book form. This hatching produces a visual texture
at once rich, varied and deeply evocative. And it is everywhere, on the backs
of the cards used to determine Tom’s fate near the end of the opera, even
on the shoehorn Nick hands to him as he helps him get ready to go out in pursuit
of a wife. Such attention is only one example of why opera is such an expensive
art form. There is spontaneous applause as the curtain rises on the auction
scene, where everything is in shades of grey. The only colour to be seen is
in the costumes of the auctioneer, and later Baba, when she emerges. I feel
sure that at the end of the run Miah Persson will have hidden the dress and
cloak she wears for much of the opera in her suitcase, so beautiful is it.
Only Bedlam disappoints me, its inmates, grotesquely masked, ranked in strange
boxes behind the action, practically immobile. I can’t quite see what Hockney
was driving at there. The production is directed by John Cox. He has created
a marvellous stage experience, full of touching and sometimes near-hilarious
detail.
Nick Shadow speaks directly to the audience in Act 2, which justifies his
winking and gurning at them at various points throughout, usually to show
what a dupe his master is, and always to delicious comic effect. His costume,
and in particular his hairdo, is ridiculous, yet strangely disquieting. Matthew
Rose plays the part to the hilt, making clear from his very first scene that
Tom is a pushover and that Anne is where the danger lies. He manages adeptly
the comic aspects of the role, at least as far as the graveyard scene, when
everything changes. It’s possible to imagine a darker voice for Shadow, but
I find his assumption totally convincing. Topi Lehtipuu as Tom is very fine
too. He captures very well indeed Tom’s love for Anne, which is genuine and
will be his salvation, but which he abandons by weakness of will. Miah Persson
is adorable as Anne. She brings out beautifully the vulnerability of the character,
but crucially she has brilliantly understood the steely determination present
in Anne’s music, and acts it out, both physically and vocally, to perfection.
The smaller roles are beautifully taken, and the chorus sings and acts splendidly.
Time and again I was struck, as never before, by the sheer beauty of the sound
of this work, and the orchestra plays magnificently under the inspiring direction
of Vladimir Jurowski.
The film has been made by a largely French team and apparently for French
television. It has been sensitively done, remaining faithful to the action
throughout. As you watch this film, and savour the remarkable and delicious
detail that has gone into the production, you can avail yourself, if you wish,
of subtitles in English or in three other languages. You can choose between
two different sound setups. Before watching, you can read in the booklet the
useful essay and synopsis by Mike Ashman. And afterwards, you can easily locate
your favourite passages among the forty-eight chapters usefully provided.
Alternatively, if you really want to, you can watch the two extras, but as
is so often the way of things, these are of limited interest and value, a
series of short interviews mixed in with extracts from the show. Inevitably
the performers spend a fair amount of time telling us how wonderful all the
others are, and if that sounds cynical let me say that they are indeed wonderful,
all of them, and so are no doubt totally sincere. Even David Hockney, his
Yorkshire accent still attractively present, doesn’t really have much to tell
us, but Jurowski at one point does make the interesting point that it is difficult
for the cast to avoid becoming a kind of “singing accompaniment to the set”
as “the set is quite difficult to compete with”.
There are other performances of The Rake’s Progress on DVD, including
an earlier incarnation of this same production, finely sung but now superseded
technically. Then there is the production from La Monnaie in Brussels, garishly
updated to 1950s America. Rapturously received in many quarters, you are likely
to love it or hate it. Either way, there is no question, this life-enhancing
DVD from Glyndebourne is truly special and not to be missed.
William Hedley
A brilliant performance of an opera like no other, in a classic Glyndebourne
production.