The Rake’s Progress contains a fair number of dramatic
flaws - at least on paper. Consider the amount of time given
to leave-taking in the very first scene, when Tom has learned
he is a rich man and must go off with Shadow to attend to his
affairs. The end of Act 2 really shouldn’t work, the final
bars preceded as they are by a lengthy piece of recitative in
which Shadow convinces Nick that his machine for making stones
into bread is a viable commercial concern. Then in Act 3, it
is surely dramatic suicide to resort once again to extended
recitative, with harpsichord accompaniment no less - for what
is surely the key scene of the opera, when Tom wins his soul
at cards, but loses his mind. One could easily draw attention
to other things, yet the wonder is that, well cast and, above
all, well staged, the opera works brilliantly in the theatre.
When an opera is heard simply through loudspeakers, with no
visual element, the totality of what you might call the theatrical
experience must be conveyed by what the singers sing and what
the instrumentalists play. That experience is largely absent
in this performance.
The work is uneven, too, from a purely musical point of view.
The inspiration runs at less than boiling point for much of
Act 2, and I think there is little doubt that Stravinsky had
more sympathy with his female characters than with his male
ones. Thus, the part of Anne Trulove is a gift for any soprano
with the voice to carry it off. She is, to be sure, the little,
downtrodden woman left at home, but her scena at the end of
Act 1 shows how strong and determined a person she is, and her
support of Tom in the closing scene of the opera demonstrates
her steadfast and loving nature. Jayne West’s assumption
of this challenging role is a major achievement. She is totally
in command vocally and through her voice alone manages remarkably
well to suggest the different facets of the character. I can’t
think of another Anne Trulove, live or recorded, who has so
successfully inhabited the part. The other great success in
terms of casting is Baba the Turk. She is wonderfully haughty
as she demands, from her coach, that Tom finishes “whatever
business” he has with Anne, later sealing her own marital
fate by jabbering hilariously until her husband can stand no
more. She is then very touching when she advises Anne to go
in search of Tom, thereby relinquishing her husband to another,
before sweeping out regally, imperiously, from the auction where
her possessions are being sold, with the words “The next
time you see Baba, you shall pay!” Wendy White achieves
all this by singing Stravinsky’s notes as accurately as
possible and by putting her lovely voice to work without a trace
of exaggeration or caricature. The role of Mother Goose is an
ungrateful one, and Shirley Love assumes it here with the now
customary harsh tone and wide vibrato. There seems less to say
about the men in this performance. Jon Garrison, as Tom, sings
well enough and his voice is clear and pleasant, but there seems
little attempt to bring out the different facets of a character
which is, in fact, quite a complex and varied one. By acting
with his voice he might have helped us understand why he married
Baba whilst still in love with Anne, or even why Anne should
love such an apparently feckless creature at all. No, it’s
all too monochrome and unvaried, a criticism which can also
be made of John Cheek as Nick Shadow. Let’s not forget
that in this modern reworking of the Faust story, Nick is the
Devil. This particular devil never resorts to persuasive charm,
nor do we ever see anything resembling a diabolical smile on
his lips. Instead, he sings a more or less constant forte,
creating a forceful character but one without much in the way
of malice. Toward the end of Act 2 he speaks directly to the
audience, letting us into the secret that he thinks of his master
as a fool. Tom is on stage at the time, but there is not the
faintest suggestion of an aside, speaking behind the hand. Arthur
Woodley, as Anne’s father, also sings too loudly too much
of the time. He should be warmer, gentler than this. When, near
the end, he comes to bring her out of Bedlam where she must
abandon the man she loves, he might be calling her to the table
for dinner. Sellem, the auctioneer, is another lovely, if small,
part, and well taken here by Melvin Lowery, though Kevin Miller
is funnier in Stravinsky’s reading from 1964. I’m
happy to acknowledge Jeffrey Johnson, suitably lugubrious in
the tiny role of the Keeper of Bedlam.
Robert Craft’s role as Stravinsky’s musical assistant
has been well documented, as has the part he played in the gestation
of this particular work. His performances in this ongoing series
of Naxos reissues of his Stravinsky series are characterised
by technical perfection and absolute clarity, Stravinskian virtues
to be sure. He eschews, however, anything that might be thought
of as interpretation. This approach can work well in some works,
but the result here is a certain rigidity which undermines any
ability the singers might have to invest into their singing
the nature of the character they are playing. This applies to
the chorus too, who are musically superb, if a bit underpowered,
but who sound the same - and very proper with it - be they whores,
gossipy would-be auction customers, or even lunatics. The funeral
dirge of Tom/Adonis is a case in point. It is well sung, dark
in tone, but too brisk and too inflexible in pulse to communicate
what is actually present in the music. The composer himself
is better in this scene, and when, under his direction, Baba
reveals her beard in answer to the crowd’s entreaties,
the effect is grotesque, orgiastic, almost disgusting. Not here,
I’m afraid.
The orchestra plays brilliantly well and the recording is clear
and immediate. We get the smashed pots, the cuckoo clock and
so on, but otherwise there seems to be little attempt at production.
The singers appear to stand in a line and sing, and this, combined
with Craft’s clinical approach and the rather faceless
manner of some of the principals, makes for a decidedly untheatrical
experience. There have been many recordings of The Rake’s
Progress, and though I haven’t heard or seen them
all, one or two I have come across have been real horrors. Chailly’s
performance on Decca is more involving than this one, but the
casting is uneven and you need to proceed with caution. Stravinsky
apparently left London in 1964 with unpleasant memories of his
experience of recording the opera with the Royal Philharmonic
Orchestra. Well, maybe the sessions were difficult, I wouldn’t
know, but the result is, in my view, still the most successful
version of this flawed but fascinating masterpiece.
William Hedley
see also review by Dominy
Clements