Review

The Rake's Progress, Royal Festival Hall, review: an artificial work brought to new and effervescent life

Vladimir Jurowski conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra
Vladimir Jurowski conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra Credit: Benjamin Ealovega

It’s easy to feel that there’s something unnatural about The Rake’s Progress. WH Auden and Chester Kallman’s preposterously camp and irritatingly precious libretto is set to Stravinsky’s music with a quirkiness that reminds you that English was not the composer’s mother tongue. There are other faults and imbalances, too: Baba the Turk’s prima donna flouncing, for instance, isn’t nearly as funny as its authors seem to think it is, and the graveyard scene is a protracted bore.

Although Stravinsky was one of the greatest composers of ballet, opera was something with which he grappled uncomfortably: in his youth, he confessed to an active dislike of its pretensions. The Rake’s Progress, then, should be experienced as a playfully ironic experiment with a set of classical idioms and conventions; it looks back at the 18th century to defy Wagnerian romanticism, rather than developing an authenticity of its own. David Hockney’s designs for the Glyndebourne production encapsulate with genius this essential artificiality.

At the Royal Festival Hall, however, there were no cross-hatched backdrops. In this concert version, freely enacted with minimal costuming, we were required to concentrate on the score, as presented by Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Jurowski can often seem like a fiercely analytical conductor, examining the music in HD focus rather than feeling it from within. But here he was unusually relaxed, bringing warmth and lyricism as well as sparkle and devilry to this most calculated of artefacts. As expected, the ensemble and instrumental detail were clearly defined throughout, with much beautiful playing from both brass and wind – as Anne Truelove made her way to London, Paul Beniston’s soulful trumpet gave particular pleasure.

Three quarters of the principal singers were replacements for those originally advertised. Nevertheless, any disappointment at finding that Allan Clayton wasn’t singing Tom Rakewell was instantly dispelled by Toby Spence, a seasoned interpreter of the role, still freshly youthful and enthused. His arias “Love, too frequently betrayed” and “In a foolish dream” were exquisitely done.

Sophia Burgos sings Anne Trulove
Sophia Burgos sings Anne Trulove Credit: Kate Lemmon

Faithful Anne was not Miah Persson but an American newcomer, Sophia Burgos, blessed with a limpid soprano and just the right degree of winsome charm. Counter-tenor Andrew Watts stood in for contralto Patricia Bardon as bearded Baba the Turk: I suppose doubling the transgender joke was justified, and Watts certainly played up to it in his six-inch stilettos, though his singing exaggerated it a little too much. Best of all was Matthew Rose, anyone’s first choice for Nick Shadow, suavely plausible and quite endearing.

With strong contributions from Marie McLaughlin, Kim Begley, Clive Bayley and the choir of London Voices, the performance was so effervescent that I was left wondering whether this opera might have a heart after all.

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