THE RAKE'S PROGRESS is Now Playing at Den Norske Opera

A machine that turns stones into bread, a bearded lady, a mental hospital – and love: Journey down a delightfully dark spiral into the mind of a madman in Vidar Magnussen’s production of Stravinsky’s fiendish opera.

Pact with the devil

The combination of being lackadaisical and greedy is dangerous. Tom Rakewell learns this the hard way. He is madly in love with the kind-hearted Anne Trulove, but there’s a hitch – her father wants Tom to have a job, but Tom feels he is not cut out for a life of drudgery!

Fortunately, the diabolical Nick Shadow shows up and announces an opportune money inheritance from an obscure uncle, so Tom goes to London in search of happiness.

Downward spiral

The temptations of the city are many and Anne’s love is not enough for Tom to resist an increasingly debauched lifestyle. Nick Shadow has all the answers – including marriage to a bearded lady! Or an ingenious machine that turns stones into bread! The path that Shadow leads Tom down ends at a mental hospital.

But Anne continues to have faith in Tom and fights against the delusions that have taken hold on Tom’s mind.

Absurd chamber of horrors

Director Vidar Magnussen has returned to the Oslo Opera House to toy with our perceptions of reality in this horror show of a performance. He takes us inside Tom Rakewell’s head on a wild journey from riches and a life of luxury to poverty and insanity.

Magnussen debuted as an opera director with Orpheus in the Underworld in 2021 and repeated the success in 2023. This time round, he has stepped up from operetta to opera and created a darker universe in the form of an absurd, burlesque fantasy world with an aesthetic taken from the 50s and 60s.

Mozart through a funhouse mirror

Igor Stravinsky wrote The Rake’s Progress in 1951, based on eight satirical paintings by William Hogarth. Stravinsky was one of the most prominent composers of the 20th century and can best be described as a sort of hipster composer who turned conventional music upside down and shamelessly borrowed from other operas and composers.

As an opera composer, Stravinsky wanted to follow in the footsteps of Mozart. The music in his only completed opera is a collision between tradition and anarchy, reminiscent of both Mozart and Beethoven – and distorted through a funhouse mirror.

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