Ensembles: Opera

MSU Opera Theatre and Chamber Orchestra presented Igor Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, Spring 2005

EAST LANSING, Mich.– The MSU College of Music Opera Theatre and Chamber Orchestra presented Igor Stravinsky’s rarely performed 20th-century masterpiece The Rake’s Progress in Spring 2005.

The Rake's Progress premiered in Italy in 1951 and is Stravinsky’s tribute to opera.  Based upon the great 18th-century etchings of William Hogarth, W.H. Auden, and Chester Kallmann, Stravinsky fashioned a morality play around the lives of Tom Rakewell (the rake), Anne Trulove (good), and Nick Shadow (evil). Tom is a young man who lives only for money and pleasure. When he wishes for riches, Nick Shadow miraculously appears to tell him of an inheritance. Nick is only after Tom’s soul, and entices Tom to London. His sweetheart, Anne, is left behind, waiting for Tom to send for her. When he doesn’t, she heads to London to try to save him from the decadence and degradation of his life. However, Tom, bored with the excesses of hedonism and seeking ever-greater pleasures, is convinced to take Baba the Turk, a bearded lady, as his wife. He tires of her quickly, and moves on to another get-rich quick scheme. When that fails, he and Nick flee the city. At this point, Nick asks for his salary for the past year of service: Tom’s soul. They play cards for Tom’s soul and Tom surprisingly wins. As punishment, before he descends back to Hell, Nick makes Tom go insane. Tom is put into a madhouse where Anne finds him, and realizes her love isn’t strong enough to save him, and says goodbye as he dies.

Director Melanie Helton and Designer Kirk Domer created a world of Daliesque surrealism on the set. They set the production in the midst of the 1980s, a decade of excesses.

Raphael Jimenez directed the MSU Chamber Orchestra, and the cast included more than 30 MSU voice students, from freshmen to graduate level, and starred Matthew Tuell (2004’s Rodolfo in “La Boheme”) in the role of Tom Rakewell.