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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
This release makes one wonder if there is any music John Eliot Gardiner can't conduct well. Here, for what is probably the first time on CD, Gardiner goes for Stravinsky, and while a nitpicker might point out that Rake is Stravinsky's "Mozartean" opera, let's face it--it's real Stravinsky. Gardiner manages the composer's angles and strange rhythms superbly, and he concentrates on the lower instruments as well (the engineers assist nicely throughout), leading a fleet, ironic performance of this tough work while underlining the score's sweetnesses as well. It doesn't hurt that he has the finest cast available: Bryn Terfel's Nick Shadow is amazingly nuanced, and only once or twice does the great bass-baritone do his infamous "whispering act." He's positively chilling in the graveyard scene. And what can one say about Ian Bostridge as the titular rake? When he says, "I wish I had money!" in Act I, he's Everyman; he wins us over and we feel for him no matter how stupid he is. He's a bit stressed at the very top of his range in the one or two forte passages, but considering how clever this artist is, it wouldn't be a surprise if he's doing it on purpose. Deborah York is such a fine Anne--singing with clean, white, innocent tone--that she even outdoes Dawn Upshaw's splendid portrayal. Anne Sophie Von Otter sings Baba's music impeccably (and in unaccented English), but, as usual, she seems more distinguished and artistic than moving. This set is now at the top of the pack; if you've been wondering about this opera and were wondering when and where to get your feet wet, go no further. --Robert Levine
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A performance that totally absorbs you,
By A Customer
This review is from: Stravinsky: The Rake's Progress (Audio CD)
You don't need to see this opera - you just need to listen to this recording. There's such a sense of life and energy about the playing and the singing that you're completely drawn in, and it's difficult to listen to just one track without wanting to hear the whole thing. It's a great piece - wonderfully accessible and musically one of the most colourful operas in the business. A great recording.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
WHORING AND ROARING,
By DAVID BRYSON (Glossop Derbyshire England) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (VINE VOICE) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Stravinsky: The Rake's Progress (Audio CD)
If you are looking for a more or less ideal account of this most elegant of 20th century operas then you will find one here. If not, may I suggest that you ought to be, because otherwise you are missing out sadly.
Stravinsky himself emphasised that an overly literal enactment of this libretto should be avoided, its real point being its moral. It represents his second go at a slightly lightened version of the Faust/Mephistopheles legend, the first having been The Soldier's Tale, so his instruction hardly needed even that much emphasis. Even Berlioz withholds the really frightening character of Mephistopheles until near the end, and Stravinsky and Auden leave Nick Shadow's full unveiling until after he has let Tom Rakewell escape his ensnarement, so that we end up feeling almost sorrier for Nick than for Tom. Tom's story certainly points up the moral that the devil finds work for idle hands, but the poor old junior devil who has failed in his assignment is now going to have to face Our Father Below. It all leaves the production with the issue of how to handle nearly 3 acts before we come to the real point of it all, and my vote goes emphatically to the way Gardiner and his team of celebs go about it. If the work is new to you, may I earnestly recommend reading the libretto carefully before you play the music. The libretto is by WH Auden and also by Chester Kallman, about whom the liner note is silent although it has a great deal to say about the cordial interaction between the composer and Auden. If you don't think much of the libretto as `writing' or as `literature' neither do I, but that is to miss the point. Great poetry and great writing just do not go very well to music in most cases, and what Auden has done is to turn out a not-overdone pastiche of the 18th century idiom, the sort of thing that the Rev Morell turned out so expertly for several of Handel's oratorios. In fact the best versifying probably comes (intermittently) in the last act when Auden changes from the 18th century manner to the rhyme-scheme of The Ancient Mariner; and I wonder whether this is a deliberate allusion to that great epic of spiritual disgrace and subsequent redemption. This whole dramatisation of Hogarth is treated by poet and composer as picturesque and stylised, but as no more than a good yarn, building up the evidence until Nick's final judgment until he inexplicably fumbles that and spares our emotions. Bostridge is lightweight, Deborah York as Anne is lightweight, the formidable von Otter who has bowled me over before now in Schumann Respighi and Chaminade goes lightweight as the bearded bride, the other male parts are neither here nor there - they are all lightweight except for Nick, and Bryn Terfel holds everything in reserve until his own final undoing, when we realise what he had led Tom into, only Tom has got off more easily than he might have done. Terfel is simply terrific at this point, and I can only hope that from his own Elysium the composer feels that his exhortation regarding the point of it all has been properly followed. Do you agree with the liner note writer that this opera is dominated by the title role? The view makes no sense to me, and it would have been the wrong sense if it had done. Bostridge is a great artist, and he knows better than to try to make Tom any kind of equal contender with Terfel's Nick. Auden's book keeps its eye on being what it ought to be, namely a good opera libretto. In my own opinion it is a superb libretto, pacing the action magnificently and delineating the characters with the kind of clarity that fits Stravinsky's musical idiom like a glove. From the conductor's point of view this may make it all as easy and natural as it is made to sound, but I wouldn't put any money on that. This musical direction is the art that conceals art, and in this most Mozartian of modern music dramas that is exactly what we want. The recording (1997) is absolutely excellent in my own opinion. Joseph Kerman's liner note is bitty and piecey, requiring more concentration from the reader than it rewards. There are resumes of the principal artists, and I can think of no reason why we could not have had similar short sketches of all of them. I love this composer, and I love this opera, and this is my own idea of how to do it. It even ends with a vaudeville in which the singers step out of costume and remind us of the moral of the tale, as in Verdi's Falstaff. I don't really know why Stravinsky was so worried that this might be underplayed, but I like the company he keeps.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brimming with wit and charm,
By
This review is from: Stravinsky: The Rake's Progress (Audio CD)
This set captures such excellent, vivid and clear performances that the story leaps out by just listening. You won't really even need to follow the printed libretto. Every single character is perfectly sung and the orchestra and conductor are in top form. The whole thing brims with wit and charm making it very very enjoyable. I have listened to it several times already.
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