t was mere coincidence that in 1947 at the Chicago Art Institute Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) came across the series of etchings by the English artist William Hogarth entitled “The Rake’s Progress”, dating from 1732/33. They gave him the idea for a black comedy dealing with one of the most familiar themes for an opera: a pact with the Devil. In the centre of the action is Tom Rakewell, the dissolute young man of the title. He likes extravagance and longs for riches and a carefree life. As the sinister Nick Shadow brings him the news that he has come into a large inheritance in London, he leaves his fiancée Anne and her father Trulove behind; but he discovers his new life as a man of property in London to be somehow unsatisfying. In search of adventure he marries Baba the Turk. Anne, who is anxious for him and has followed him to London, is horrified, and Tom himself feels soon enough that Baba is too grotesque for him. Nick persuades him to give financial backing to a newly invented machine to turn stones into bread; Tom loses his entire fortune with this investment. Nick offers assistance on condition that Tom barters his soul to him. Tom has a chance to escape this if he can guess three cards. Anne’s love inspires him to guess them correctly, but in doing so he loses his sanity. In the belief that he is Adonis and Anne is Venus, he is lost in a world of his own.

“The Rake’s Progress” is the only full-length opera which Stravinsky wrote. A combination of fantasy in the images, surprises in the action and pungent social satire made for a parable both amusing and emphatic with an ambiguity congenial to his musical gifts. As Jean Cocteau once remarked, everything which he (Stravinsky) touched became his own property. And he touched many things. Available material gave him his cue to make it into his own substance for the “Rake’s Progress” – which by no means implies that it is merely derivative, a pasticcio.

After the jubilantly received première of their Henze “Phaedra” at Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Sabine Hartmannshenn and her team now offer their staging of Stravinsky’s masterly work. Since her “Lulu” at the Göteborg opera, hailed as the Production of the Year 2002, the director has been in demand at many international opera houses.
 
In English with German surtitles
 

Musikalische Leitung Axel Kober
Inszenierung Sabine Hartmannshenn
Bühne Dieter Richter
Kostüme Susana Mendoza
Licht und Video Volker Weinhart
Chorleitung Christoph Kurig
Dramaturgie Anne do Paço
 
Tom Rakewell Matthias Klink
Anne Trulove Anett Fritsch
Nick Shadow Bo Skovhus
Baba the Turk Susan Maclean
Mother Goose Bonita Hyman
Trulove Sami Luttinen
Sellem Bruce Rankin
Wärter des Irrenhauses David Jerusalem
Nick Shadows Gehilfe Harald Beutelstahl
Chor Chor der Deutschen Oper am Rhein
Orchester Düsseldorfer Symphoniker