Igor Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress

Opera performed at The Metropolitan Opera on May 1, 2015
Review written and edited by Peter Buller


No one wants to work. In the same vein, no one wishes to invite boredom in their life. In boredom lies the idleness of life, those bleak moments where nothing is accomplished in the hands of workers everywhere. Indeed, the plague of boredom ruins the life of Tom Rakewell, the protagonist of Igor Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress. Performed at The Metropolitan Opera's ostentatious opera house, James Levine conducted Stravinsky's score with expertise befitting the extravagant theatre. Paul Appleby sings the part of Tom Rakewell, the young lover and vagabond whose life is ruined by the conniving of Nick Shadow, sung by the notable baritone Gerald Finley.

Stravinsky's opera toys with the ruination of idleness and boredom. The father of Anne Trulove--Tom's sole love in the world--wishes Tom were employed; but his concerns fall on indifferent ears. Tom's decision to remain unemployed invites the sudden appearance of Nick Shadow, the Devil in disguise as Tom's manservant. From this point, "the progress of a rake begins," as Shadow plays Tom's idle desires to his ruin. The promise of inheriting a large sum of money whisks Tom away from his beloved to a brothel in a faraway city. Alone with his wealth, Tom's boredom chews at his self-worth and confidence, which Shadow manipulates to his disadvantage by piquing his interest in a bearded lady. By the time Anne seeks out her love, Tom is wedded to Baba the Turk, a relationship which only exacerbates his doubts and worsens Tom's anxieties. Rejecting his love eats at Tom's conscious, causing him to lash out at his wife and fall to Shadow's manipulations once more, this time losing all his wealth to the promises of solving hunger with a machine that transforms stones to bread. With the loss of his wealth, Shadow demands payment for his servitude and drops his disguise. Tom plays a game of cards for his soul, which he wins out of love for Anne, despite their former tension. Saved by the Queen of Hearts, Tom survives the Devil's conflagration; but at the price of his sanity. Likening himself as Adonis to Venus, the opera closes with him confined to an insane asylum, the Devil's trickery having robbed him of any chance at life.

Aphrodite loses much of her significance as Venus, her Roman incarnation, and this osmosis of meaning regrettably influences Stravinsky's opera too. Tom's fate, the wrath of Nick Shadow, should inspire action in similarly-minded youth to make their life's work than wait for life's fortunes; but Stravinsky's confusing vacillation between tragic intensity and comic relief deprive the work of its message. Trulove's comic remarks on Tom's unemployment feel painful in retrospect of his final lines urging Anne to abandon his love in the mental hospital. In this respect Stravinsky's comic reverberations return as subtle, ironic echoes. However, Stravinsky utilizes comedy more for cheap entertainment than anything else. Although Shadow's remark that he "is not without compassion" is admittedly witty, its awkward placement in the confrontation between him and Tom decreases the intensity of their encounter; and the incessant repetition of similar quips throughout the story disenfranchises the final scene of its gravitas.

Tom's lament of Anne's departure invites pity and mockery where empathy should have blossomed. Whatever moral Stravinsky wished to impart now falls on ears enjoying his humorous jabs; while more serious spectators leave with mixed impressions. Given the heartfelt performances of The Metropolitan Opera's singers and their synthesis with Stravinsky's score, one wonders if they better understand than Stravinsky himself that "for idle hearts and hands and minds the Devil finds work to do." If his passion for writing matched that of tonight's performance, then one could imagine Tom as happy as Camus imagines Sisyphus.