Stravinsky The Rake's Progress
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Igor Stravinsky
Genre:
Opera
Label: Erato
Magazine Review Date: 8/1996
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 0630-12715-2
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| (The) Rake's Progress |
Igor Stravinsky, Composer
Anne Collins, Mother Goose, Mezzo soprano Dawn Upshaw, Anne, Soprano Grace Bumbry, Baba the Turk, Mezzo soprano Igor Stravinsky, Composer Jerry Hadley, Tom Rakewell, Tenor Kent Nagano, Conductor Lyon Opera Chorus Lyon Opera Orchestra Robert Lloyd, Trulove, Bass Roderick Earle, Keeper of the Madhouse, Bass Samuel Ramey, Nick Shadow, Baritone Steven Cole, Sellem, Tenor |
Author: Michael Oliver
Any number of the world’s opera houses would have given their eye teeth for the privilege of presenting the premiere of Stravinsky’s only true opera, but he, intensely money-conscious though he was (and he had worked on the piece for three years without a commission fee), insisted on La Fenice in Venice. Because he was fond of the city, of course, but also because The Rake’s Progress is a chamber opera. And this is a chamber performance of it, with a fairly small orchestra, much singing of almost parlando quality and crystal-clear words. It is also intimate, with a strong sense of the stage, of characters reacting to each other. Together with Nagano’s on the whole brisk tempos, and no time wasted on pauses between numbers that should follow each other without a break, it gives the impression of a real performance, and a gripping one.
Upshaw’s is not the purest soprano voice to have attempted the role of Anne, and there have been more spectacular high Cs than hers, but she is movingly vulnerable, totally believable. So is Hadley, acting at times almost too vividly for the music’s line: as he occasionally demonstrates he has a wonderfully beautiful head voice; I wish he had used it more often. He is not, therefore, quite the touchingly likeable “shuttle-headed lad” that Alexander Young portrayed so unforgettably in the composer’s own second recording, but no other Tom Rakewell surpasses him. Ramey’s is a bigger voice than most of the others here, and in the past I have sometimes found his firm, superbly produced sound a bit unvaried: not here. He has recorded the role twice before (for Chailly, and on a video of the Glyndebourne production conducted by Haitink, available on Carlton Classics), but never with such a light touch, and all the more dangerous for it. Collins and Lloyd are both first-class as Mother Goose and Trulove, Cole an unusually light-voiced, confidingly conspiratorial Sellem. Bumbry is the disappointment of the cast, over-loud and baritonal almost throughout, but the French chorus sing nimbly and in admirable English.
I still love Stravinsky’s own recording, particularly on account of Young, also for the composer’s infectious enthusiasm and sheer rhythmic zest, but of modern recordings ofThe Rake’s Progress this is by some way the most enjoyable.'
Upshaw’s is not the purest soprano voice to have attempted the role of Anne, and there have been more spectacular high Cs than hers, but she is movingly vulnerable, totally believable. So is Hadley, acting at times almost too vividly for the music’s line: as he occasionally demonstrates he has a wonderfully beautiful head voice; I wish he had used it more often. He is not, therefore, quite the touchingly likeable “shuttle-headed lad” that Alexander Young portrayed so unforgettably in the composer’s own second recording, but no other Tom Rakewell surpasses him. Ramey’s is a bigger voice than most of the others here, and in the past I have sometimes found his firm, superbly produced sound a bit unvaried: not here. He has recorded the role twice before (for Chailly, and on a video of the Glyndebourne production conducted by Haitink, available on Carlton Classics), but never with such a light touch, and all the more dangerous for it. Collins and Lloyd are both first-class as Mother Goose and Trulove, Cole an unusually light-voiced, confidingly conspiratorial Sellem. Bumbry is the disappointment of the cast, over-loud and baritonal almost throughout, but the French chorus sing nimbly and in admirable English.
I still love Stravinsky’s own recording, particularly on account of Young, also for the composer’s infectious enthusiasm and sheer rhythmic zest, but of modern recordings of
Stravinsky The Rake's Progress
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