Organization

Conductor

Sylvain Cambreling

Stage director

Peter Mussbach

Set designer

Jörg Immendorff

Costume designer

Singer

Tenor

Jerry Hadley

Tom Rakewell

Soprano

Sylvia McNair

Anne Truelove

Bass

Peter Rose

Father Truelove

Bass-baritone

Monte Pederson

Nick Shadow

Contralto

Linda Ormiston

Mother Goose

Mezzo-soprano

Grace Bumbry

Baba the Turk

Salzburger Festspiele

The Rake's Progress

Salzburg

Austria

Things look good at first, but then... Over the course of three acts, Igor Stravinky's opera fable The Rake's Progress confronts the audience with the devil's invincibility. At least on the surface. In fact, the moralistic work serves ironic aims here. On its basis, Peter Mussbach and costume and stage designer Jörg Immerdorf staged a quick-fire farce at the 1996 Salzburg Festival, opening up a wide range of possible interpretations. They play with comedy, caricatures, crazy forms and bright colors. The result is both bewildering and highly entertaining. The cast is equally impressive: Jerry Hadley (Tom Rakewell) and Monte Pederson (Nick Shadow) are a strong pairing, between fickleness and wickedness; Sylvia McNair lends Anne Truelove a silky smooth voice. A production exemplary of Gerard Mortier's spell as artistic director at the Salzburg Festival.

Großes Festspielhaus

In 1951, in Venice, Igor Stravinsky conducted the premiere of his only full-length opera The Rake’s Progress. He had conceived the idea for this work after visiting the Chicago Art Institute in 1947, where he came upon a series of eight satirical engravings of the same title, created by the English painter and copperplate engraver William Hogarth in 1735. On the recommendation of his neighbour Aldous Huxley, Stravinsky asked W. H. Auden to write an opera libretto for him, which was ready by late February 1948.

Peter Mussbach’s production, recorded for this DVD by Brian Large, was first performed at the 1996 Salzburg Festival. Sylvain Cambreling directed the choir of the Vienna State Opera and the Camerata Academica. The soloists included Jonathan Best (Trulove), Dawn Upshaw (Anne Trulove) and Jerry Hadley (Tom Rakewell).

Salzburger Dom

The Rake's Progress Stravinsky

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Approved

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