“I (am to) slave through a lifetime to enrich others, and then be thrown away like a gnawed bone?” Faced with becoming a bank trainee, young Tom Rakewell is restless.
He had expected more than that from life. And when thereupon a stranger called Nick Shadow appears and promises him not only a fat inheritance, but also an exciting future far from tame country life, his intended Anne Trulove and her father cannot restrain him. “Away to London!” is his call, where freedom, happiness, success and money beckon. But Tom stumbles from one disaster to the next instead, and in the end realizes that he has sold his soul to his dubious crony Nick Shadow. Anne’s love gives him the strength to beat Nick at one last draw of cards, but the price for Tom’s victory is to lose his mind.

Seeing the English engraver William Hogarth’s “The Rake’s Progress” (1732-33) at an exhibition at the Chicago Art Institute gave Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) the idea of making the series of copperplate etchings into a black operatic comedy on one of the most popular theatrical themes: rise and fall of a “hero” by a pact with the Devil. With its ingredients of visual narration, surprise stage-effects and biting social satire he created a parable as forcible as it is ludicrous, with false-bottomed ambiguity matched in his score. From Handel via Mozart to reminiscences of musicals, the neo-classical composition is one big adventurous ride through musical history, and yet it is more than just a collage, it is a real Stravinsky.

For Sabine Hartmannshenn and her team the staging of “The Rake’s Progress” is the second co-operation with Deutsche Oper am Rhein, after her interpretation of Henze’s “Phaedra” was acclaimed as the highlight of “the Henze year 2010”. Since her “Lulu” at the Göteborg opera, which was declared the production of the year in 2002, she has been directing for many international opera houses.

 
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Opera in three acts
Libretto by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman

 
In English with German surtitles
 

Musikalische Leitung Wen-Pin Chien
Inszenierung Sabine Hartmannshenn
Bühne Dieter Richter
Kostüme Susana Mendoza
Licht und Video Volker Weinhart
Chorleitung Christoph Kurig
Dramaturgie Anne do Paço
 
Tom Rakewell Jussi Myllys
Anne Trulove Anke Krabbe
Nick Shadow James Bobby
Baba the Turk Marta Márquez
Mother Goose Nassrin Azarmi
Trulove Günes Gürle
Sellem Florian Simson
Wärter des Irrenhauses Lukasz Konieczny
Nick Shadows Gehilfe Harald Beutelstahl
Chor Chor der Deutschen Oper am Rhein
Orchester Duisburger Philharmoniker