The Rake’s Progress August 5, 2012

Stravinsky – New production, sung in English with supertitles
Approximate running time: 2.5 hours
Inside the Opera preshow talk begins one hour before curtain

The young and feckless Tom Rakewell succumbs to temptation and abandons his sweetheart and his simple country life for the bright lights of the city. The Rake’s Progress tracks Tom’s fall from grace in the brothels and mansions of London and testifies to the redemptive power of love.

A chance encounter with William Hogarth’s famous paintings at an art exhibition in Chicago in 1947 inspired Stravinsky to commission the libretto for The Rake’s Progress. This elegant 20th-century work, with its chamber orchestration, neoclassical form and vivid tonal language owes a musical debt of gratitude to Mozart.