Unreal city: The Rake's Progress at the Royal Academy of Music

The Rake's Progress

Cassandra Wright (Anne Trulove)

Jacob Phillips (Nick Shadow) and Georgia Mae Ellis (Mother Goose)

Jacob Phillips (Nick Shadow) and Ryan Vaughan Davies (Tom Rakewell)

By Benjamin Poore, 23 November 2022

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“a spare production that is heavy on projections”

Reviewed at Royal Academy of Music: Susie Sainsbury Theatre, London on 22 November 2022

Stravinsky, The Rake's Progress

Royal Academy Opera

Trevor Pinnock, Conductor

Frederic Wake-Walker, Director

Anna Jones, Set Designer

Charlotte Burton, Lighting Designer

Ergo Phizmiz, Video

Ryan Vaughan Davies, Tom Rakewell

Jacob Phillips, Nick Shadow

Cassandra Wright, Anne Trulove

Rebecca Hart, Baba the Turk

Georgia Mae Ellis, Mother Goose

The Royal Academy's Carmen has too many what-if moments

Dominic Lowe, 18th November

Presenting a work like Carmen is a punchy move by a conservatoire. The Royal Academy of Music's production has conceptual weaknesses, but features some good singing.

***11

Royal Academy Opera stages a magical Zauberflöte

Mark Valencia, 18th March

A lyrical yet zesty account of Mozart's' adorable score, in a production that is on the nose and off the wall.

****1

A dystopian Hansel und Gretel at the RAM

Mark Valencia, 20th November

Jack Furness serves up an unappetising mess of Humperdinck's delicious masterpiece for Royal Academy Opera.

***11

Keeping it surreal: Martinů double-bill at the Royal Academy of Music

Dominic Lowe, 8th May

With typical spirit, the students at the Royal Academy of Music did an excellent job in bringing Martinů’s Comedy on the Bridge and Alexandre bis to life – two lesser-known pre-war surrealist gems.

***11

Emotion and mayhem: a golden double bill from Royal Academy Opera

Stephen Pritchard, 18th March

Students triumph in Tchaikovsky's Iolanta and Ravel's L'Enfant et les sortilèges.

****1

By Jove! A terrific Semele at the Royal Academy of Music

Matthew Rye, 14th November

Royal Academy Opera maintains its usual high standards in a production of Handel’s operatic oratorio, a showcase for the singers of the future.

****1

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Benjamin Poore

Benjamin Poore is a writer and critic. His book on psychoanalysis and literature is forthcoming in 2019. He has previously written about literature and culture for the Independent, the Times Literary Supplement, and Times Higher Education. In his spare time he tries to sing Schubert; he has a very patient teacher.