The Rake's Progress

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Work data
Title: The libertine
Original title: The Rake's Progress
Original language: English
Music: Igor Stravinsky
Libretto : WH Auden and Chester Kallman
Premiere: September 11, 1951
Place of premiere: Teatro La Fenice , Venice
Playing time: approx. 2 ½ hours
Place and time of the action: England, 18th century
people
  • Trulove ( bass )
  • Anne, his daughter ( soprano )
  • Tom Rakewell ( tenor )
  • Nick Shadow ( baritone )
  • Mother Goose, Mother Goose ( mezzo-soprano )
  • Baba the Turk, the Turkish Bab (mezzo-soprano)
  • Sellem, auctioneer (tenor)
  • Madhouse Guard (Bass)
  • Whores and bawling boys, servants, citizens, madmen ( choir )

The Rake's Progress (dt .: The Libertine , The story of a libertine or the career of a libertine is) an opera in three acts by Igor Stravinsky . The libretto is by WH Auden and Chester Kallman . The copper engraving series A Rake's Progress by the English painter and engraver William Hogarth served as a template for this opera . The world premiere took place on September 11, 1951 at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice.

content

Both Hogarth's picture series and Stravinsky's opera tell the story of the bon vivant Tom Rakewell , who gambled away his money, had affairs with women, ruined himself and his fellow human beings and ended up in psychiatry .

Stravinsky tells the progress of the story in the style of a number opera only in the musical parts.

first act

Scene 1. The garden of Trulove's house in the country. Spring afternoon

On the right the house, in the middle in the back the garden gate, on the left in front an arbor in which Anne and Tom sit.

Tom Rakewell and Anne Trulove enjoy their love like Adam and Eve in paradise. Anne's father sends his daughter into the house because he wants to talk to Tom about his future. He offers him the prospect of a job in his friend's bank. Tom answers evasively. He doesn't want to be constrained by a fixed position and prefers to rely on Fortuna. All he needs to be happy is money. As soon as he has expressed this wish, Nick Shadow appears at the garden gate. He asks Tom to fetch Anne and Trulove and tells them that Tom's forgotten uncle has died and made him his heir. Since Nick is now without a master, Tom takes him into his service. Nick, actually the devil himself, suggests that Tom don't pay him for a year and a day after he realizes the value of his services. Then he should give him as much as he himself thinks is just. Before Tom goes to London with Nick to deal with the formalities of the inheritance, Tom says goodbye to Anne and Trulove and vows to remain loyal to Anne. Nick turns to the audience: "The Progress of a Rage begins" - "The career of a libertine begins".

Scene 2. Mother Goose's brothel in London

At a table on the right in the background of the stage, Tom, Nick and Mother Goose are drinking. In the back left a cuckoo clock. Whores and bawling boys.

Tom and Nick enjoy life to the fullest. Mother Goose lets Tom explain his basic principles, which he learned from Nick: Men and women should not owe themselves anything, just follow nature and indulge in beauty and enjoyment. Only the concept of love does not occur to him. At one o'clock the cuckoo clock strikes, but at a signal from Nick it runs backwards and strikes twelve. You have another hour to celebrate. Tom comes forward and introduces himself to those present with a sad love song. The prostitutes pity him. Mother Goose pushes them aside and takes him for herself. While the two slowly move away, those present sing a serenade. Nick wishes Tom sweet dreams, but then comments: “Dreams may lie. But dream. For when you wake, you die. ”-“ Dreams can lie. But dream, because when you wake up you die. "

Scene 3. As in the first scene

Anne is eagerly waiting for a message from Tom. Knowing his weakness, she decides to follow him to London.

Second act

Scene 1. The breakfast room in Tom's house in a London square. The bright morning sun penetrates the windows, as does street noise

Tom is sitting at the breakfast table. If he makes a particularly loud noise, he gets up, walks quickly to the window and slams it.

The monotony of city life is already getting on Tom's nerves. He longs for the great outdoors again. He sits down and expresses his second wish: he wants to be happy. Then Nick enters the room with a leaflet announcing an appearance by the Turkish Baba (Baba the Turk). Tom suspects a new juggling of his companion, but he suggests him seriously to marry Baba, precisely because he does not love her and has no obligations to her. In this way he can free himself from his desires and gain freedom. Both laugh. Nick helps Tom to get dressed, and together they make their way to the Turkenbab.

Scene 2nd street in front of Tom's house in London. Autumn. dusk

Semicircular steps lead to the entrance in the middle of the stage. The staff entrance on the left, a tree on the right.

Anne enters. She looks worriedly at the door for a moment, slowly climbs the stairs and hesitantly reaches for the door knocker. Then she sees a servant coming out of the other entrance and hides against the wall under a tree until he has left. When she turns back to the entrance, she notices a procession of servants on the right, bringing oddly shaped packages into the house. Meanwhile night has come. A litter is brought up and Tom gets out. Anne rushes to him, but Tom is dismissive and tells her to return home. He was no longer worth her. When Baba gets out of the litter, Tom introduces her to the shocked Anne as his wife. Anne reminds him of their mutual love, and both lament what happened. Baba becomes impatient and asks Tom to help her out of the litter. Anne rushes off while Tom helps his wife into the house. Meanwhile, Baba was noticed by the street people who asked her to come and see them. Baba turns around and reveals her full black beard.

Scene 3. The same room as in the first scene of the second act, but full of all kinds of messy objects

Tom and Baba are having breakfast. He pouts; she chatters incessantly.

When Tom ignores Baba's talk and finally tells her to be silent, Baba bursts into tears and is furious. She scolds and smashes objects. Tom takes the wig and pulls it over Baba's head. She remains seated in her chair, motionless. Tom throws himself on a sofa and falls asleep. Meanwhile, Nick brings in an exotic-looking machine in a pantomime scene. He takes a piece of bread from the table and puts it in the machine. Then he throws a piece of a broken vase into a funnel and turns a wheel, whereupon a slice of bread falls out of the machine. He then does the same thing in reverse, so that the audience realizes that it is crude charlatanism. After waking up, Tom tells of his dream in which he saw a wonderful machine that could turn stone into bread. He expresses his third wish: he would like to conquer hunger and poverty with the help of the machine. So he wants to become worthy of Anne again. To his surprise, Nick shows him this very machine. Nick explains to the audience that Tom is a fool, but that good business can be done with him. Then he points out to Tom that there is still a lot to be done for series production and offers him to take over the matter. Tom has lost interest in the Türkenbab.

Third act

Scene 1. As in the third scene of the second act, but everything is covered with cobwebs and dust. Afternoon. spring

Baba is still sitting motionless at the table, her wig pulled over her head.

Tom has gone bankrupt and, like many of the dealers and buyers, has to sell all of his property. A crowd flocks to the auction full of anticipation. Anne appears and asks about Tom. She receives contradicting information: Tom has fled to America, died, converted to Judaism, etc. The auctioneer Sellem enters with his servants, and the auction takes its course. The Türkenbab itself is also offered as an “unknown object”. After Sellem has removed the wig from her head, she comes to life again and sings a variation of her aria from Act II. From outside the voices of Tom and Nick can be heard offering old women for sale. Anne rushes to the window to check on him. Tom has already left, but Baba assures her that Tom still loves her. Anne should keep looking for him and rescue him. She, Baba, wants to resume her stage career. After the auction ends, Tom and Nick sing a ballad in the street. Everyone listens carefully. Anne rushes out to Tom, while Baba tells Sellem to call her carriage and with a grand gesture leaves.

Scene 2. A starless night. A cemetery. Graves

In the front center a fresh grave. Behind it is a flat tombstone on which a gravedigger's spade is leaning. On the right a yew tree

Tom and Nick come in from the left. Tom is breathless. Nick is carrying a small black bag. Since he has been in Tom's service for a year and a day, he demands his agreed wages. Tom asks to be patient until he has money again. Nick then reveals himself to him as the devil, pulls various objects of murder out of his pocket and explains that he doesn't want money, but his soul. At midnight Tom is supposed to choose the way of his death. A clock starts to ring. Tom begs heaven for mercy. Nick then gives him one last chance: a game of cards should decide Tom's fate. Tom has to guess the cards that Nick revealed from the deck three times. In the first round he thinks of Anne and correctly names the queen of hearts. The second time he thinks of the devil and calls his name “deuce” (also the English name for the “two” on playing cards). At the same time, the spade falls over and inspires Tom to use the name “spade” (which is also the English name for “spades”). The two of spades is also correct. Now Nick prepares the card game unnoticed by Tom and puts the queen of hearts back on. Before the third answer, Tom is desperate. He only longs for Anne and her love - his fourth and last wish. Anne joins his singing behind the stage. When Tom notices this, he again chooses the queen of hearts as the symbol of love and reaches for the opened deck of cards. The twelfth bell rings, and Tom falls to the floor with a cry of joy. Nick, on the other hand, curses Tom to rob him of his mind and sinks into the grave he intended for him.

After a moment of complete darkness, the sun rises. It's spring. The open grave is now covered with a green hill, on which Tom sits smiling, laying grass on his head and singing like a child.

Scene 3. Madhouse. At the back in the middle a straw bed on an elevation

Tom is standing in front of a group of madmen, among them a blind man with a fiddle, a crippled soldier, a man with a telescope and three old women.

Tom thinks he is Adonis and calls for his lover Venus. The madmen tell him to give up all hope. The guard opens the door and leads Anne inside. She goes into his madness and calls him "Adonis". Tom, in turn, greets her with relief as "Venus". He asks her forgiveness, which Anne grants him. Tom sinks down on the bunk, exhausted. Anne sings him to sleep with a lullaby. The guard brings her father Trulove who picks up Anne. After they have left, Tom wakes up again, jumps up, calls for Venus and various heroes of ancient times, and falls back dead on the cot. The choir mourns him.

In an epilogue, Anne, Baba, Tom, Trulove and Nick explain the moral of the story: “For idle hands and hearts and minds, the Devil finds a work to do.” - “The devil finds his work with idle hands, hearts and souls . "

layout

The Rake's Progress is Stravinsky's last work in the neoclassical style. At the same time it is his most extensive and only full-length stage work. Melody, harmony and rhythm appear in a greatly simplified form, but allow his style to be recognized at any time. Stravinsky works of the 18th century served as a model, especially by Mozart, whose style is constantly being alienated by tiny interventions. The result is a "pale timbre that is extremely appropriate to the subject". The recitatives are accompanied as in the operas of this time of a harpsichord. The individual music numbers can be clearly separated from one another, but are nevertheless interlinked in different ways. There are overarching elements such as a harpsichord figure in thirty-second notes in Nick Shadow's performances.

In addition to Mozart, the music also has echoes of Georg Friedrich Händel , Christoph Willibald Gluck , Ludwig van Beethoven , Franz Schubert , Carl Maria von Weber , Gioachino Rossini , Gaetano Donizetti ( Don Pasquale ), Giuseppe Verdi and Pyotr Tschaikowski . The libretto is linguistically based on Alexander Pope and William Congreve . The resulting poorer understanding of the text was often criticized.

Structurally, the opera corresponds to a fairy tale or a fable, which is also indicated by the subtitle "A fable". The plot also contains allusions to various operas, mythological and biblical motifs, e.g. B .:

Music numbers

The individual numbers are indicated in the libretto as follows:

  • Prelude

First act, scene 1

  • Duet and trio (Anne, Tom, Trulove): "The woods are green"
  • Recitative (Tom): "Here I stand"
  • Arie (Tom): "Since it is not by merit"
  • Recitative (Nick, Tom): "Tom Rakewell?"
  • Quartet (Tom, Nick, Anne, Trulove): "I wished but once, I knew"
  • Recitative (Nick, Trulove): "I'll call the coachman, sir"
  • Duettino (Anne, Tom): "Farewell for now, my heart"
  • Recitative (Nick, Tom): "All is ready, sir"
  • Arioso and Terzettino (Tom, Anne, Trulove): "Dear Father Trulove"

First act, scene 2

  • Chorus (roaring boys): "With air commanding and weapon handy"
  • Recitative and scene (Nick, Tom, Mother Goose): "Come, Tom"
  • Choir (roaring boys and girls): "Soon dawn will glitter"
  • Recitative (Nick): "Brothers of Mars"
  • Cavatine (Tom): "Love, too frequently betrayed"
  • Choir (prostitutes, Mother Goose): "How sad a song"
  • Choir (men, women, Nick): "The sun is bright"

First act, scene 3

  • Recitative (Anne): "No word from Tom"
  • Aria (Anne): "Quietly, night"
  • Recitative (Anne): “My Father! Can I desert him "
  • Cabaletta (Anne): "I go to him"

Second act, scene 1

  • Aria (Tom): "Vary the song, O London, change"
  • Recitative (Tom): "O Nature, green unnatural mother"
  • Aria (Tom, Reprise): "Always the quarry that I stalk"
  • Recitative (Nick, Tom): "Master, are you alone?"
  • Aria (Nick): "In youth the panting slave pursues"
  • Duet - Finale (Tom, Nick): "My tale shall be told"

Act two, scene 2

  • Recitative and Arioso (Anne): "How strange!"
  • Duet (Tom, Anne): “Anne! here! "
  • Recitative (Baba): "My love, am I to remain in here for ever?"
  • Trio (Anne, Tom, Baba): "Could it then have been known"
  • Finale (Baba, Tom, choir): "I have not run away, dear heart"

Second act, scene 3

  • Aria (Baba): "As I was saying"
  • Baba's song: "Come, sweet, com"
  • Aria (Baba): “Scorned! Abused! Neglected! Baited! "
  • Recitative (Tom): "My heart is cold"
  • mime
  • Recitative - Arioso - Recitative (Tom, Nick): "OI wish it were true"
  • Duet (Nick, Tom): "Thanks to this excellent device"
  • Recitative (Nick, Tom): "Forgive me, master"

Third act, scene 1

  • Chorus (citizen): "Ruin, Disaster, Shame"
  • Recitative (Sellem): "Ladies both fair and gracious"
  • Aria (Sellem): "Who hears me"
  • Auction scene: "Seven - eleven"
  • Aria (continued): "Behold it, Roman, moral"
  • Auction scene: "Fifteen - and a half"
  • Recitative (Sellem): “Wonderful. Yes, yes. "
  • Aria (continued): "An unknown object draws us"
  • Finale of the auction scene: "Fifty - fifty-five"
  • Arie (Bürger, Baba): "It's Baba, his wife"
  • Recitative and duet (Bürger, Baba, Anne): "Now what was that?"
  • Duet (Baba, Anne): "You love him"
  • Ballade (Tom, Nick, Anne, Baba, Sellem, Bürger): "If boys had wings and girls had stings"
  • Stretta - Finale (Anne, Baba, Sellem, Bürger): "I go to him"
  • Ballad (recapitulation): "Who cares a fig for Tory or Whig?"

Third act, scene 2

  • Prelude (string quartet)
  • Duet (Tom, Nick): "How dark and dreadful is this place"
  • Recitative (Nick, Tom): "Very well then"
  • Duet (Tom, Nick): "Well, then - My heard is wild with fear"

Third act, scene 3

  • Arioso (Tom): "Prepare yourselves, heroic shades"
  • Dialog (chorus, Tom): "Madmen's words are all untrue"
  • Recitative (Wärter, Anne, Tom): "There he is"
  • Arioso (Tom): "I have waited for thee so long"
  • Duet (Tom, Anne): "In a foolish dream"
  • Recitative [quasi arioso] (Tom): "I am exceeding weary"
  • Lullaby (Anne, choir): "Gently, little boat"
  • Recitative (Trulove, Anne): "Anne, my dear, the tale is ended now"
  • Duettino (Anne, Trulove): "Every wearied body must"
  • Finale (Tom, choir): "Where art thou, Venus?"
  • Mourning choir: "Mourn for Adonis, ever young"
  • Epilogue: "Good people, just a moment"

Instrumentation

The orchestral line-up for the opera includes the following instruments:

Work history

Emergence

In 1735, William Hogarth created the series of engravings A Rake's Progress from a group of eight oil paintings of the same name. During a visit to an exhibition at the Chicago Art Institute on May 2, 1947, Stravinsky saw the copperplate engravings that gave him the material for his long-planned project for an English-language opera. In October 1947 he asked WH Auden , who had been recommended to him as a librettist by his neighbor Aldous Huxley , for a collaboration. In November 1947, in California, he worked with Auden on a synopsis of the fable in ten days, initially based on the sequence of images until the libretto developed its own dynamic. With Stravinsky's consent, Auden brought in his friend and lyric poet Chester Kallman for support , and the two essentially divided the work as follows:

  • First act, first scene to the end of Tom's aria: Auden
  • First act, first scene after Tom's aria and second scene: Kallman
  • First act, third scene: Auden
  • Second act, first scene up to the recapitulation of the aria: Kallman
  • Second act, end of the first scene: Auden
  • Second act, second scene: Kallman, later revised by Auden at Stravinsky's request
  • Second act, third scene: Auden
  • Third act, first scene with the exception of the song sung backstage by Tom and Nick: Kallman
  • Third act, first scene, song by Tom and Nick: Auden
  • Third act, second scene: Kallman
  • Third act, third scene and epilogue: Auden

An exact identification of the individual parts of the text is no longer possible, however, since the two authors worked very closely together and the libretto - also with Stravinsky's participation - was revised several times.

Auden also provided the dramaturgical structure of the work and the idea for the elements not specified in the series of images. From the beginning, opera was to follow the tradition of musical theater works of the 18th and early 19th centuries. While Stravinsky initially thought of a ballad opera or opéra-comique with spoken dialogues, Auden suggested the form of an opera buffa with secco recitatives . During the composition, Stravinsky studied the works of Handel and Mozart in detail, especially his Così fan tutte , whose piano reductions he sent. Auden only used Hogarth's series of images as a framework for an “idea drama developed from the external plot in the tradition of the mystery play”. He developed the characters further, added the role of the satanic Nick Shadow and saturated the text with allusions to mythological and biblical traditions. In a conversation with Robert Craft in 1959/60, Stravinsky mentioned that the figures of Mother Goose and the "ugly Duchess" (the Turkish Babies) were also contributions from Auden.

Stravinsky began composing the cemetery scene even before the libretto was completed in December 1947. On March 31, 1948, Auden in Washington gave him the third act of the libretto ready for printing. On this occasion, Stravinsky's collaboration with his musical assistant Robert Craft began . One of his first tasks was to read Stravinsky the text aloud so that he could internalize the correct intonation. Stravinsky composed roughly one act in each of the following years. The epilogue was completed on April 7, 1951. The last thing he wrote was the fanfare-like prelude to the first act.

premiere

The Rake's Progress was not composed as a commission. The opera was bought up by the managers of the 14th Festival of Contemporary Music in Venice, the Venice Biennale , through Stravinsky's friend Nicolas Nabokov . For the performances in the Teatro La Fenice there , the choir and orchestra of La Scala in Milan and the conductor Ferdinand Leitner could be won over. The latter was Stravinsky's second choice, as his favorite Igor Markevitch had been rejected by the Italians. After the premiere on September 11, 1951, directed by Stravinsky himself, Leitner took over the subsequent performances.

Stravinsky began rehearsals in Milan in August 1951, for which only three weeks were available. The production was by Carl Ebert , the choreography by Rya Teresa Legnani, the stage design by Gianni Ratto and the costumes by Ebe Colciaghi. The soloists were Raffaele Arié (Trulove), Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (Anne), Robert Rounseville (Tom Rakewell), Otakar Kraus (Nick Shadow), Nell Tangeman (Mother Goose), Jennie Tourel (Baba the Turk), Hugues Cuénod (Sellem) and Emanuel Menkes (keeper of the madhouse).

The premiere had a mixed success. The production was not very inspired, Stravinsky's conducting seemed insecure, and the leading actor Rounseville was overwhelmed vocally and dramatically. However, Schwarzkopf, Kraus and Cuénod in particular managed to fill their roles.

reception

A German translation by Fritz Schröder with the title The Story of a Wüstlings was first performed that same year in Zurich under the direction of Victor Reinshagen and on November 4, 1951 as a German premiere in Stuttgart. The musical direction was again Ferdinand Leitner, the direction Kurt Puhlmann. This version was given around the same time in Hamburg with a production by Günther Rennert , who later took on the work several times.

On December 8, 1951, the production of the world premiere in an Italian translation by Rinaldo Küfferle under the title La carriera di un libertino with a slightly different line-up of singers was taken over at La Scala in Milan, but even there only achieved a respectable success.

Other important rehearsals were:

According to the Harenberg opera guide, the opera, which many critics regarded as "artless" and brittle, took a while before it found its place in the repertoire at the latest since the 1980s. The Stravinsky biographer Paul Griffiths, on the other hand, noted in his 1982 book about this opera that The Rake's Progress was possibly staged more frequently than any other opera composed after Puccini's death (1924).

The first commercial record was made in 1953 under Stravinsky's direction after the production of the Metropolitan Opera . Ralph Kirkpatrick played the harpsichord, which was used here for the first time instead of the piano previously used.

Recordings

The Rake's Progress has appeared on multiple phonograms. Andreas Ommer names 19 recordings in the period from 1951 to 2003. Therefore, only those recordings that have been particularly distinguished in specialist journals, opera guides or the like or that are worth mentioning for other reasons are listed below.

literature

  • Paul Griffiths: Igor Stravinsky - The Rake's Progress. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1982, ISBN 0-521-23746-7 .
  • Rudolf Kloiber, Wulf Konold, Robert Maschka: Handbook of the Opera. New edition. 11th, revised edition. Bärenreiter / dtv, Kassel et al. / Munich 2006, ISBN 3-423-34132-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Igor Stravinsky in: Komische Oper Berlin : The Rake's Progress . Program booklet. 1979, p. 13.
  2. ↑ a b c d e The Rake's Progress. In: Harenberg opera guide. 4th edition. Meyers Lexikonverlag, 2003, ISBN 3-411-76107-5 , pp. 903-905.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Richard Taruskin :  Rake's Progress, The. In: Grove Music Online (English; subscription required).
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Sieghart Döhring: The Rake's Progress. In: Piper's Encyclopedia of Musical Theater. Vol. 6 works. Spontini - Zumsteeg. Piper, Munich and Zurich 1997, ISBN 3-492-02421-1 , pp. 150-155.
  5. ↑ a b The Rake's Progress. In: Sigrid Neef : Handbook of Russian and Soviet Opera. Henschelverlag Art and Society, Bärenreiter 1989. ISBN 3-7618-0925-5 , pp. 629–637.
  6. ^ Deutsche Oper am Rhein : The Rake's Progress . Program booklet. 2013, p. 44.
  7. ↑ September 11, 1951: "The Rake's Progress". In: L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia ..
  8. ^ Ulrich Schreiber : Opera guide for advanced learners. The 20th century III. Eastern and Northern Europe, branch lines on the main route, intercontinental distribution. Bärenreiter, Kassel 2006, ISBN 3-7618-1859-9 , pp. 156–158.
  9. ↑ Information on the work of CD Naxos 8.111266-67 , accessed on September 13, 2016.
  10. ^ Paul Griffiths: Igor Stravinsky - The Rake's Progress. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1982, ISBN 0-521-23746-7 , p. 56.
  11. ↑ a b c d e f Igor Fjodorowic Stravinsky. In: Andreas Ommer: Directory of all opera complete recordings. Zeno.org , Vol. 20, p. 18312.
  12. ^ The Rake's Progress (Jurowski, Glyndebourne 2010) DVD. Review on tutti-magazine.fr (French), accessed September 14, 2016.