What do you think?
Rate this book
Cambridge Opera Handbooks
Igor Stravinsky: The Rake's Progress
The Rake's Progress is Stravinsky's biggest work and one of the few great operas written since the 1920s, rare too for the unusual quality of its libretto, by Auden and Kallman. Its importance is undisputed, but so too are the problems it raises: problems of both performance and understanding, caused by the irony with which it is so thoroughly permeated. In aspects of style and operatic convention it looks back to the eighteenth century, and in particular to the operas of Mozart and da Ponte, while making references also to other periods, to operas from Monteverdi to Verdi. Yet at the same time it is wholly a work of the twentieth-century, and indeed it is centrally concerned with the impossibility of return, artistic, psychological or actual, as well as with the nature and limitation of human free will. The Rake's Progress is not one of unbridled dissipation but rather, more interestingly, one of attachment to naive notions of freedom and choice, and his tragedy is that he can never go back.
- GenresLiterature
124 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
17 people want to read
About the author
Paul Griffiths
101 books35 followersPaul Anthony Griffiths, OBE, is a British music critic, novelist and librettist. He is particularly noted for his writings on modern classical music and for having written the libretti for two 20th century operas, Tan Dun's Marco Polo and Elliott Carter's What Next? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Gr...]
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 11, 2023
Often listed as one of the greatest librettos of all time, I was initially piqued to explore W. H Auden and Paul Griffith's work. Unfortunately, while the work has its moments of real beauty, a pair of lines or stanza here and there which offer some nuance, some reversal of expectation along with an original image, by and large the libretto feels written on much tread ground.
It is difficult to create a new Faustian story which stands on its own feet after Goethe, but if this is the goal, it best to make a fresh take of it. Instead, The Rake's Progress offers the shallower basic tale, never venturing beyond its human consequence. We might anticipate that the devil figure himself, Nick Shadow, might offer us some insight into the nature of evil or his own role in it. Little is here forthcoming. One would think, then, that we would learn something of the condition of humankind in a more philosophical way than that of Goethe's ambition for cosmic scale. This, too, is limited to small consequence: the moral, the libretto sings clearly, is that the indolent--the lazy--will not succeed.
Built upon the 18th century paintings by William Hogarth, the writers had much room to explore the glue which holds this story of debauchery together. They did not.
This is not to say that the opera does not have its strengths! Stravinsky's music, as ever, is a modernist trophy shelf. Some of the more powerful include the bonding of the women, those who are living in sin or those of hopeful virtue, Baba the Turk and Anne Trulove, who find common solace in the suffering each has endured. Most satisfying, however, is its non-comedic end, where true love does not triumph over the ignorance of men.
As a piece of ekphrasis--a work which speaks or reflects another artwork--the opera is strong and enduring. As a work of poetry or storytelling, however, it was much less satisfying.
It is difficult to create a new Faustian story which stands on its own feet after Goethe, but if this is the goal, it best to make a fresh take of it. Instead, The Rake's Progress offers the shallower basic tale, never venturing beyond its human consequence. We might anticipate that the devil figure himself, Nick Shadow, might offer us some insight into the nature of evil or his own role in it. Little is here forthcoming. One would think, then, that we would learn something of the condition of humankind in a more philosophical way than that of Goethe's ambition for cosmic scale. This, too, is limited to small consequence: the moral, the libretto sings clearly, is that the indolent--the lazy--will not succeed.
Built upon the 18th century paintings by William Hogarth, the writers had much room to explore the glue which holds this story of debauchery together. They did not.
This is not to say that the opera does not have its strengths! Stravinsky's music, as ever, is a modernist trophy shelf. Some of the more powerful include the bonding of the women, those who are living in sin or those of hopeful virtue, Baba the Turk and Anne Trulove, who find common solace in the suffering each has endured. Most satisfying, however, is its non-comedic end, where true love does not triumph over the ignorance of men.
As a piece of ekphrasis--a work which speaks or reflects another artwork--the opera is strong and enduring. As a work of poetry or storytelling, however, it was much less satisfying.
Displaying 1 of 1 review