Royal Academy Opera: The Rake's Progress

The Rake’s Progress follows the downfall of Tom Rakewell, who is engaged to his sweetheart, Anne Trulove. The mysterious Nick Shadow arrives to tell of the death and resulting legacy of an unknown uncle, and so begins the progress of the Rake to London. Inspired by William Hogarth’s engravings, Stravinsky and WH Auden (with Chester Kallman) wrote The Rake’s Progress while living as émigrés in the USA. The opera is a critique of the exploding capitalist attitude of the time and a reflection on youth from a composer approaching old age. Full of musical and cultural references, it juxtaposes Baroque and Classical with 20th-century themes.