The Rake's Progress by Stravinsky, De la (2022/2022), Regizat de către Mathieu Bauer,, Dirijor Grant Llewellyn, Rémi Durupt, Théâtre Graslin, Nantes, France

Opera in three acts by Igor Stravinsky Libretto by Wystan Hugh Auden and Chester Kallman Inspired by the eight paintings of William Hogarth 1951 At the height of his art and settled in Hollywood, Stravinsky composed The Rake's Progress ( La Carrière du Libertin ) from paintings by William Hogarth from 1948. Given its world premiere at La Fenice in Venice in 1951, this score created the event and will be repeated the following years all over the world. It must be said that the work, unclassifiable, seems to us almost a century later still just as fascinating: it marries the classic form of an era in which we no longer completely believe, it depicts characters whose cracks touch and marry the issues of our society, it takes on the accents of irresistible musical comedy in certain numbers, it bursts with audacity by reinventing the lyrical model... In short, it reconciles tradition and modernity like no other. The director Mathieu Bauer, director of the CDN de Montreuil from 2011 to 2021, signs here his first opera and situates this plot in the carelessness of the 1950s, jubilantly characterizing each of the characters: Tom Rakewell, anti-hero who squanders an unexpected legacy in gambling and brothels; Anne Trulove who is looking for true love; Nick Shadow, the Tempting Devil; Turkish Baba, the bearded lady… To sublimate this art of contrasts, Grant Llewellyn conducts his Orchester National de Bretagne and the chamber choir Mélisme(s), as well as a cast of soloists who are all Mozartians at heart.