Ep. 135 The Rake's Progress

Summary

Opera For Everyone: Ep. 135 The Rake's Progress (October 5, 2025)

Episode Overview

In this engaging and insightful episode, host Pat Wright and guest co-host Kathleen Vandewille dive deep into Igor Stravinsky’s opera The Rake’s Progress with English libretto by W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman. The discussion seamlessly blends musical appreciation, literary context, history, and thematic analysis, making the opera’s story both accessible and meaningful. Expect explorations of 18th-century art, Stravinsky’s musical intentions, the fascinating cast of characters, and the opera’s moral center, all treated with characteristic warmth, humor, and literary flair.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Makings and Meaning of "The Rake’s Progress"

• Defining the Rake:

  • Kathleen reintroduces the term "rake"—an outdated English word for a "hellraiser or a profligate man," commonly associated with gambling, drinking, carousing, and womanizing ([01:15–01:46]).
  • The opera’s title does not mean progress toward improvement, but a journey through decadence: “This is what happens during a section of his life.” (Pat, [02:04])

• Origins:

  • Based on William Hogarth’s 18th-century series of paintings, which were “like a graphic novel of their day” (Kathleen, [07:15]).
  • Hogarth used his art for moralizing, depicting a young man’s decline through vice.
  • Connection to moral literature like John Bunyan’s "Pilgrim’s Progress", but in reverse.

• Composer and Librettists:

  • Igor Stravinsky, already a modernist icon, sought to write an English opera after moving to the US ([03:23]).
  • Aldous Huxley, Stravinsky’s Hollywood neighbor, introduced him to W.H. Auden ([04:10–04:15]).
  • Auden and Chester Kallman collaborated in New York, mixing their deep literary backgrounds and theatricality ([04:29]).

“Auden really straddles that tradition of looking back towards the old, but also incorporating the new into his work.”
—Kathleen ([06:24])

• Musical Style:
  • Stravinsky aimed for a neoclassical sound, deliberately referencing earlier forms to “break from the Wagnerian tradition and use recitatives, arias and harpsichords,” seeking clarity and structure ([17:55–19:20]).

2. Plot Synopsis and Scene-by-Scene Highlights

Act 1: Idyllic Beginnings and Devilish Deals

• Country Idyl:

  • Tom Rakewell and Anne Truelove are introduced as sweethearts ([10:13]).
  • Anne’s father, Truelove, is a “reality check” and offers Tom a job, which he declines, relying on faith in luck ([21:42–22:47]).
  • Tom’s worldview: "Since it is not by merit we rise or fall, but by the favor of fortune, why should I labor at all?" (Tom’s aria, [26:09])

• The Arrival of Nick Shadow:

  • Tom wishes for money—cue Nick Shadow, a Faustian devil figure ([28:08–28:44]).
  • Nick presents Tom as the heir to a fortune, tempting him to London, with an ominous employment contract: “Pay me what you think I’m worth after a year and a day” ([32:47–33:36]).
  • Allusions to fairy tale motifs: wishes, supernatural helpers, “a year and a day.”

“If anyone ever says to you, in a year and a day, that is trouble language right there... That is a real warning sign.”
—Kathleen ([32:59–33:36])

• London Sins:
  • Tom is swiftly introduced to urban vice in a brothel (Mother Goose’s house).
  • The score revels in "the fun side" of sin—choruses of rakes, drinking, and the enticing Mother Goose ([39:21-41:23]).

Act 2: Escalation and Estrangement

• Scene of Boredom:

  • Tom, now wealthy, is “so bored by it all”—a core aspect of the rake’s psychology ([53:17–54:25]).

• Nick's Unorthodox Solution:

  • Nick suggests Tom should “marry the bearded lady of the circus” (Baba the Turk) to break the cycle of desire and gain ‘freedom’ ([55:26–56:26]).
  • This move is both absurd and thrilling—“It is hard to be bored when you're trying to get engaged to the bearded lady at the circus.” (Kathleen, [57:07])

• Anne’s Loyalty:

  • Meanwhile, Anne, certain Tom needs her, resolves to go find and help him ([46:22–47:39]).

• Baba’s Introduction:

  • Baba is much more than a comic foil; she is vibrant, famous, and a catalyst for further chaos ([74:17–75:52]).
  • The marriage scene is farcical and awkward, culminating in Tom’s desperate attempt to silence Baba by magical means ([85:01–87:46]).

Act 3: Downfall and Redemption Denied

• Financial Ruin:

  • Tom is ruined by a get-rich-quick stone-to-bread machine scam, orchestrated by Nick ([88:12–89:39]).
  • The auction scene is both energetic and pitiful as Tom’s (and Baba’s) possessions are sold off; Baba is auctioned live, wakes from magical stasis, and offers Anne compassionate guidance ([95:38–98:15]).

• Final Confrontation:

  • In a graveyard, Nick demands Tom’s soul. In a climactic card game, Tom wins—but at a cost—Nick curses him with madness ([100:04–107:07]).

“If the devil offers you a card game for your soul, don’t take it. But I guess if it’s your only option....”
—Kathleen ([104:12])

• Madness and Closure:
  • Tom, mad, ends up in Bedlam (the mental asylum), believing himself Adonis and Anne his Venus [109:04–111:32].
  • Anne forgives him, serenades him to sleep, but cannot rescue him; she chooses to move on with her life ([112:55–113:52]).
  • The opera closes with a meta-epilogue, all characters returning with a moral: “Idle hands are the devil’s work—don’t be like Rakewell.” ([115:28–116:32])

3. Literary and Artistic Resonances

• Faust Legend:

  • The opera echoes Faustian tales—deals with the devil, temptation, damnation, and the salvific role of a pure woman ([67:18]).

• 18th- & 19th-Century Context:

  • Jane Austen’s “rakes” (e.g., Wickham from Pride and Prejudice) as literary forebears of Tom.
  • The consequences of excess, financial ruin, and the debtor’s prison as harsh historical realities ([100:04–101:32]).

• Auden, Kallman, and Stravinsky:

  • Themes of “wrestling with the ancestors,” anxiety of influence, and the deliberate use of pastiche ([51:24–52:20]).

"Stravinsky doesn't really just mean for this to be, 'Oh, isn't this just a fun little story?' You gotta take something away from it. There's a moral here, and that's very 18th century."
—Kathleen ([116:13])

4. Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the Harpsichord:

  “Nothing quite feels like the 18th century as when you hear a harpsichord.”
  —Kathleen ([17:23])

• On Tom’s Character:

  “He likes being idle. He likes lolling about on the grass with his sweetheart and not doing a whole lot during the day. But he’s also got this faith in himself, completely unfounded faith in himself. He says, ‘Don’t worry, your daughter will not marry a poor man…money’s coming.’”
  —Kathleen ([21:53])

• On the Devil (Nick Shadow):

  “He is so much smarter than Tom, frankly...an evil genius. He is yards beyond Tom at all times.”
  —Kathleen ([29:26])

• On Anne’s Nature:

  “She knows him. She gets that he isn’t strong, she gets that he is lazy and she loves him still, which is interesting.”
  —Kathleen ([47:20])

• On Baba:

  “Her being bearded is the least obnoxious thing about her to him. She is vain, she is flighty…But Tom is completely… her marriage has also bored him and he is deeply regretting it.”
  —Kathleen ([81:24])

5. Recommended Recordings & Resources

• Main Recording Used:

  • London Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Eliot Gardiner (1979)
  • Cast includes Ian Bostridge (Tom), Deborah York (Anne), Bryn Terfel (Nick), Anne Sofie von Otter (Baba), Anne Howells (Mother Goose).

• Staging Recommendations:

  • Seek out live performances—referenced: Des Moines Metro Opera and Santa Fe Opera as recent/top-notch productions ([60:53–61:41]).
  • YouTube versions juxtaposing Hogarth's images with the music are also recommended.

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Timestamps of Key Segments

• 00:24–01:46 — Introduction, definitions: What is a rake?
• 03:23–08:14 — Stravinsky, Auden, Kallman: background and collaboration
• 17:23–19:20 — Stravinsky’s musical intentions, use of harpsichord
• 24:42–27:49 — Tom’s philosophy: "I wish I had money"
• 28:08–33:36 — Nick Shadow appears; Tom’s fateful deal
• 39:21–41:23 — Brothel scene and Nick's seductions
• 47:03–49:03 — Anne’s aria “I go to him”—her resolve and agency
• 53:17–54:25 — Tom, the bored libertine
• 86:19–87:46 — Tom quiets Baba (magic wig/birdcage scene)
• 92:00–93:20 — Tom’s enthusiastic embrace of Nick’s investment scam
• 100:04–101:32 — Graveyard scene: Nick claims Tom’s soul
• 109:04–113:52 — Tom’s madness, Bedlam/Adonis scene, Anne’s goodbye
• 115:19–116:32 — Epilogue: moral of the story

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Conclusion & Takeaway

Pat and Kathleen illuminate The Rake’s Progress as much more than a pastiche; it’s a vibrant, witty, and tragic meditation on temptation, free will, morality, and the human propensity for self-destruction. The podcast episode stands out for its ability to place the opera in historical, literary, and musical context—leaving listeners eager to hear or see this rarely-performed but highly rewarding work.

“Opera can be challenging, but everyone loves a good story, and a story set to music is even better…our mission is to make opera enjoyable for everyone because we believe opera is for everyone.”
—Pat ([117:53–118:09])

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For more episodes and summaries like this, subscribe to Opera for Everyone, and check out past explorations into opera’s greatest stories and scores.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to another edition of Opera for Everyone. I'm your host, Pat. Pat Wright here today with Kathleen Vandewille. Welcome, Kathleen.

[B]

So happy to be back with you, Pat.

[A]

We have a fabulous opera to discuss today. I'm actually very excited about it.

[B]

Yes, it's a little different than what we've been doing recently. If any of you been listening to some of our other opera podcast recordings. We've been very into Romeo and Juliet recently, but we are taking a hard left turn and we are doing the Rake's Progress by Igor Stravinsky.

[A]

The Rake's Progress. What an interesting opera.

[B]

And it gives us an opportunity to reintroduce one of my favorite adjectives in English history, which is that of the rake. And no one calls anyone a rake anymore, but by the end of this podcast, I hope I've convinced you to start using it again.

[A]

Well, just briefly, tell us what a rake is, because it isn't a word that's used very often these days.

[B]

It is not. A rake is. Oh, goodness. It is a hellraiser. A badly behaved man usually characterized by profligacy with women, with gambling, with drinking. I'm trying to think of a good modern equivalent, but I don't think there's any that I could say on this podcast.

[A]

That's fine.

[B]

I think you can. You can understand kind of a broken, very into company of other men and running around and carousing. Not necessarily somebody that you could trust. I would say the character of the rake still very much exists in today's society, but we just don't. We don't use that term anymore.

[A]

No, no, we don't. And this is the Rake's Progress, which doesn't mean he's getting better. It means that he's quite the opposite. Yeah. This is what happens during a section of his life. Well, before we spend some more time talking about this opera, I just want to remind everyone who's listened before, and for those of you who are new, that Kathleen is not only an opera lover and wonderful with talking about music. Opera story. Kathleen writes a blog on substack called Constructive Criticism.

[B]

Yeah, it's just a place where I can talk about things that I'm watching or reading that I think are interesting and recommend them to people if I think they'd be interesting to them as well. I post fairly irregularly but have a good back library if you're interested in my opinions on all sorts of modern television, movies and books. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

And you save the operas for opera for everyone.

[B]

I do. I do, yeah.

[A]

There's so much out there, it's overwhelming. I often rely on your recommendations.

[B]

Yeah, well, this is a nice connection for me too, with this opera because there's a lot of literary elements in it. So my love of the literary and my love of opera are very happily intertwined in this piece.

[A]

Very literary. It's one of these operas where you have an established composer, luminary. Igor Stravinsky was well into his career at this point. He'd grown up in Russia, he lived in Paris, did a lot of his work for the Ballet Russe, Diaghilev in France. And then in. In the 30s, he moved to the United States. After being in the United States for a while, working on learning English, he decides, well, I need to write an English language opera. And if we haven't said that already, this is, in fact, an English language opera. And if you're going to need to write an English language opera, you probably want an English poet to help you out with the libretto.

[B]

Yes. And so Stravinsky chose W.H. auden as the main poet he collaborated.

[A]

With, recommended to him by his neighbor in Hollywood, where he was living.

[B]

Oh, interesting.

[A]

Aldous Huxley, Brave New World. That was his neighbor.

[B]

Wow. Small world at the time.

[A]

Well, I think in a certain level. Yes. Yes. So Huxley's the one who recommended Auden. You two will do very well together.

[B]

Yeah. And Auden was also an expat at this point. He moved to the states in the 30s as well. 1939. So he moved to the States then. And he wrote this libretto for Stravinsky with his sometime partner, Chester Kallman, who is also an American poet.

[A]

Yes, they were both in New York. And in fact, Auden credits Kallman, who is a little bit younger or significantly younger, he credits Kallman with introducing him to the opera in New York. Cullman was a longtime New Yorker involved with seeing theater, seeing opera, and it was a really good collaboration between the two men, from all I can understand.

[B]

Yeah. And Auden, just to say a few more words about him, we could spend this whole podcast talking about Auden. He's wonderful. Not to devalue Kalman, who I'm sure was also very good, but Auden was one of the great poets of the 20th century. He, like many British men of his generation, he's born in 1907, so really grew up in the shadow of two world wars, educated at Oxford, has this very traditional education and life that gets disrupted by these really huge world historical events. A lot of his poetry alternates between sort of looking back on the traditional English prose and poetry tradition. Shakespeare writes a lot about Shakespeare, lectures about Shakespeare later in his life at Columbia, but while sort of paying homage to the ancestors, a lot of his poetry is very modern and is taking into account themes of disruption in the world. We have this whole idea of this lost generation after World War I, of men who had these shining futures, men and women that were either completely disrupted through death or just through tragedy, through trauma. And the literature of England and the United States really is quite different after World War I and especially after World War II. And Auden really straddles that tradition of looking back towards the old, but also incorporating the new into his work.

[A]

That idea of looking back towards the old and incorporating the new. You could say those very same words about Stravinsky.

[B]

Very, very true. Yes. They're of the same generation culturally, for sure. And I think this is a perfect subject matter for that, because while this is an 18th century subject matter, the Rake's Progress, what this is based on, and we'll get into that quite a bit in a bit here, but it also, as I said, has a lot of modern resonances. Lost young man who's wandering through without a purpose.

[A]

Well, let's talk for a moment. You mentioned 18th century, and clearly this is happening all in the 20th century with these two artists.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Why 18th century?

[B]

So the Rake's Progress is based on a series of paintings. I don't think you and I have ever done anything where the subject matter is paintings rather than a poem or a book. So it's a little bit different. So this is based on a series of paintings, but I think the more modern analog to that would almost be as if you were adapting a graphic novel. It's sort of like that because Hogarth, who's the painter of this series of works, he was also a cartoonist. He was a moralizer. He liked to use art, not just for art's sake, not just here's a pretty picture, here's something beautiful to look at, but here is something that's going to teach you a moral lesson. And although there's no text in his paintings, there is a very definite story that is being told. And he painted a series of paintings, and the Rake's Progress is his most famous series. He has a couple of other ones, including A Harlot's Progress, which I don't know if anybody ever tried to adapt that, but I'd be ready if they did.

[A]

That's really interesting because we have the paintings and the engravings from the Rake's Progress Or A Rake's Progress, but for a Harlot's Progress, those paintings were lost.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Wouldn't it be interesting to have a companion piece?

[B]

It would be maybe a little bit too. Too racy for. For its time. There are other, other types of works of art, plays and just different moralizing works like this from the time. One of the most famous is probably John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, which is a book very similar to this idea of a Rake's Progress into degeneration. This is a Pilgrim, so a religious version of that. And it's sort of the opposite. It's their progress trying to get closer to the Lord and their troubles there. That was very widely read in the 17th century. So this idea of moralizing literature, and I'm going to place the painting sort of in that category, was starting to be very popular at this time. And Hogarth, as you mentioned, made engravings of these. He originally painted them and then they were mass produced as engravings, which is how he made his money off of these sort of cheap engravings of the paintings.

[A]

Yeah. And there was an exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1947. As the story goes, Stravinsky saw them and this desire he had to come up with an English language opera. He had no commission. He just thought, this is what I need to do now. That really got the gears turning, going home, talking to his neighbor, Aldous Huxley. And lo and behold, several years later, we have an opera that Rakes Progress. Shall we go ahead and start with some music from the first act of this? It's a three act opera, by the way, plus an epilogue. This first act starts in a very idyllic country setting.

[B]

Yes. Our characters here are. Tom Rakewell is his last name there. You get the word Rake in there. Rake, just to get super in the weeds about it, is actually short for the word rake. Hell. And so there's a little play on words here calling him Rakewell.

[A]

I didn't know that. And that's by the way, that is actually in the Hogarth work, one of the pieces of paper in the depiction, T. Rakewell Esquire.

[B]

Yes, Hogarth did do a little bit of background story and he would sometimes talk about his characters and they had names sometimes within the painting itself or sometimes just he had said, oh, yeah, you know, I mean this to be so and so. And yes, Tom Brakewell. There's the. The pun is. Is originally Hogarth's. And the other pun here, and this one, I believe is Auden's pun, is Anne True. Love is his true love. That's.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Right. Leaving nothing to interpretation, there he is courting this young woman. Her name is Anne and she lives in the country. We are at her father's house when it begins. So already we're not in Tom's. Tom doesn't have a house of his own, that we see. And Tom does not have money of his own. He is a young man of fashion. He is maybe more fashion than of money. It sort of implied that perhaps he's dressing above his income, which was very common at this time. And just briefly, I know we've talked a little bit about Hogarth's moralizing. Hogarth's moralizing. There was a good reason for it. And although we might decry a moralizer now as being sort of prudish, like, why don't you just let Tom have fun? There were some really big issues with the way that young men, especially young men of decent families and respectable fortunes, were behaving in 18th century England. And subsequently in 19th century England, there's a little bit of an epidemic of men spending way too much money, getting into debt, young men especially, drinking too much gambling, going to visit prostitutes, that sort of thing. This was becoming very fashionable. It had come into fashion with Charles II in the 17th century. He had this group of courtiers around him he called his merry gang. And he loved to encourage them to do what we would call rakish behaviors. So there's all sorts of funny anecdotes, funny to us now, of them, you know, performing naked in front of him as, like a joke, or bringing lots of prostitutes into the palace, that sort of thing. But as the court of Charles II declined and we had new royalty come in who were more moralizing, it became seen as a social epidemic of young men throwing their lives away. And that's where Hogarth comes in as saying, we need to warn young men. Don't follow this path because if you do, it leads to bad places.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So that is. That is Tom when we meet him. He is not quite a rake yet, but he is a young man with a lot of time on his hands and nothing to do except flirt with his pretty neighbor.

[A]

Yes. So when we open, you don't have a sense of him behaving rakishly at all. It's just this idyllic sweet scene with sweet Anne in her beautiful soprano voice. Tom is a tenor. They have a duet that they open with where they express their love. And then we will also meet her father, you mentioned it's her father's House. And this clip that we're going to play right now, we're going to hear a little bit of Tom by himself, a little bit of the duet, and then some of true love. Mr. True love, Father. True love, as he's often called during this opera. The father is a little bit of a reality check on this head in the clouds romance that's going on between the two. So let's hear a little bit from Tom and Anne and Anne's father.

[C]

Now is the season when the Cyprian queen with genial charms translates a mortal scene when swings and mix in fauns and fools.

[B]

And.

[C]

With a kiss restore the age of gold. How sweet, how sweet, how sweet.

[A]

Truth.

[C]

O to love, O sweet, O May our father's prudence is unfounded Proof and ready vows and loving looks be always in youth we fancy, we awake but time has shone, alas, too often and too late we have not known the hearts of others O love tells the holy and My dear.

[B]

Yes, Father?

[C]

Your advice is needed in the kitchen.

[A]

Well, Anne, your advice is needed in the kitchen. I don't think it really is.

[B]

Yes, just. I think it's time to have a man to man chat is what he's saying there.

[A]

Yes, exactly. Couple comments on what we just heard, though I will say Anne Truelove, one of those lines that she's just delivered is love tells no lies. As these two young people are anticipating their life together, she's making a statement of what she believes and what she believes is important in life. And he's just so happy to be with beautiful, sweet Anne. And did you notice the harpsichord there?

[B]

Yes, yes. I think I've said this to you on a previous recording, but it always makes me feel like I'm truly in that 18th century. Nothing quite feels like the 18th century is when you hear a harpsichord. Like it just, it's like, oh, okay. Like 19th century operas because they use the same instruments that we do today. Roughly. You know, it feels more modern almost. But when you hear a harpsichord, there's no other time it could be set.

[A]

In, except for this opera written in the mid 20th century.

[B]

True, but this. But the setting.

[A]

Yeah, this opera, just in case we haven't said this before, this Opera premieres in 1951 in Venice because there was no commission and that's who was able to purchase it. But back to the harpsichord, this is part of what Stravinsky was doing on purpose, not merely to evoke the 18th century, but to define what he was doing as different from what a lot of other Composers were doing, he told Auden, right from the start, because initially when they started working, Kalman wasn't in the picture. Auden went out to California, spent a week at Stravinsky's house where they hammered out the scenario. It wasn't until Auden got back to New York that he enlisted Kallman without even telling Stravinsky at first. But the harpsichord is part of this breaking the through composition rhythm of somebody like I guess most dominantly Wagner. Stravinsky did not want to be Wagnerian. He didn't want huge through composed pieces. Now he didn't always stick to what Auden and Kalman wrote as recitatives versus a duet, an aria. Sometimes his recitatives were way more than an accompanied or a seco dry harpsichord only recitative. But it's much more that sort of opera than what was typically being done at this time and the hundred years prior.

[B]

Yeah, I would say Stravinsky achieved his goal, to me at least, because I cannot think of any, any composer that sounds different than Wagner right now. In my head, Stravinsky and Wagner do not sound anything alike. So I think he, at least to me in my knowledge of both of them, I would say they seem very different, almost completely of a different time period, although they really aren't that far apart at all.

[A]

Well, yeah, I mean it a busy time in music history this early 20th century. And I'm going to just stop there because I don't want to get off topic. I want to get back to Father True Love and his man to man talk with Tom Rakewell.

[B]

Yeah, you know, you mentioned something Anne had said, but I want to also bring forward something Tom says and perhaps the thing that makes True Love decide to pull him aside. Anne is saying all this stuff about the earth and the way that the earth smells so beautiful and the woods are green and she's talking about nature. And then Tom takes it and he's really talking about nature, but through the lens of this Greek pastoral tradition. He's talking about the Cyprian Queen is sort of reigning over the earth right now. And so you see her. And the Cyprian Queen is Venus, is Aphrodite the God of love.

[A]

Oh, hold on to that thought because yes, exactly.

[B]

Venus will come back.

[A]

Venus will hear her name again, reappear.

[B]

So you see, Anne has this sort of tradition that we would almost consider wordsworthy and this sort of like nature is the thing that's bringing out the best in us. And Tom already is a little bit discordant with her. He's talking more about the Greeks and hedonism and free love and all this fun stuff. So. So when true love steps in it perhaps it's that that made him start to wonder. But yes, he steps in and says, let's have a man to man chat here. So true love says he has a father's prudent fears and I think that very much characterizes him. He is just trying to be practical. He doesn't have anything against Tom, but he is an older man, he has money, he's a gentleman. He has established himself and supports his daughter who is very beautiful and probably could have her pick of suitors. And I think he doesn't want her to throw herself away on somebody who isn't going to be able to take care of her. Frankly.

[A]

Yes. In fact he steps into the point where he's like, look Tom, I've talked to a friend of mine, I found a job for you. A position.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Isn't Tom excited about that?

[B]

Strangely, no. Says you're too generous. Oh, wow, thanks for that. You know, you shouldn't have done that. Yeah. And I think this is a bit of a test from true love. He is trying to figure out how is Tom going to react if I offer him a job. And, and Tom is up in the clouds. I mean he is. He likes being idle. He likes lolling about on the grass with his sweetheart and not doing a whole lot during the day. But he's also got this faith in himself, completely unfounded faith in himself. He says, you know, don't worry, you know, your daughter will not marry a poor man. Like I've definitely money's. Money's coming. At some point, in some way it's coming. He doesn't have any. I don't think there's any concrete reason for him to think that is the case.

[A]

But father Truelove doesn't take it very well. He says, a poor man is not my concern. Yeah, the fact that you're a lazy man, that's the problem.

[B]

Yeah. This is very different, I would say, than what we are. Maybe what we've learned to expect from parents trying to marry off their daughter in the 18th and 19th centuries. There's a lot of caricatures of the parent trying to marry off their daughter to somebody rich. But he here proves himself to be much more true, to have a true heart. He cares about the character of the man that she marries, not his wallet. So these people are great, they're good people.

[A]

Yes, yes. So often in stories like this, the father is a Caricature of an unpleasant, unreasonable person and father. True love is not that he truly loves his daughter and wants to take care of her and if it's going to be a good match, he'll support them. But a lazy man, that's just a red flag, danger signal.

[B]

Yeah, and he's of course correct there. And just briefly, this does show a nice change in the idea of what's the barrier in a romance between two people? Because you have a romance story like this, there has to be something that's separating, otherwise there would be no story. We'd all just be happy. And a lot of people, a lot of early novels and plays, the father is the thing that separates them. Yes, we see this in a lot of Shakespeare, for instance, but in this story you think it's going to be the father at first, but in reality it's a psychological and character based barrier. It's something within one of the characters themselves that's stopping them from being happy. Tom, as we will, as we will see. Yes, no, Trullo's fine, she's great. But Tom is the person who, as we've been alluding to, is maybe not 100% ready for love and marriage.

[A]

Well, Tom is left alone on stage and has a little bit of an opportunity to explain to us as he thinks it through in his own head what he sees as important in life. We've already heard him express his love for Anne, but all alone in reaction to him rejecting this offer that the father made and the criticism about him being lazy. It's sort of this, this is what I believe song, his aria, since it is not by merit we rise or fall, but by the favor of fortune. Why should I labor at all?

[B]

Yeah, and he's not getting this from nowhere. There is a social belief that to work is common. It would make you middle class to have a job and that's how you get your money. It would be considered socially much more acceptable if fortune just smiled upon him or if he had a father with money or a rich relative to leave him a fortune, perhaps. So he's not getting this from nowhere. That is something that is in the air in society of the time. We don't know. But did true love work for his money or is that inherited wealth? It's hard for us to know, but my guess would be it's inherited wealth just from the way he's characterized. But there's a shift here, of course, in society where we're saying it is more morally correct to work for money than to just hope it comes about and be lazy.

[A]

Yeah. So let's hear Tom express his belief that fortune is what matters.

[C]

And his wits, since it's not by merit we rise or we fall, but the favour of fortune that governs us all. That governs us all. Why should I labour for what in the end she will give me? Poet, if she be my friend While if she be not, why, the wealth I might gain For a time by my toil Would at last be in vain Would at last be in vain Till I die of the. Even for my light being abstract Let me defy my weight and trust to my luck and trust to my love My life lies in it for me the one is so high Come, wait at me. Horses. These beggars are ride this beggar shall run. I wish I had money.

[A]

I wish I had money, says Tom. And he speaks it. This is not an opera which has spoken dialogue between the stories. It's only Tom's wishes. And when he expresses his wish to have money, something surprising happens.

[B]

Yes, you should always be careful speaking your wishes out loud. If you've ever read a fairy tale, I think you know that. Yes. Someone appears as soon as he says it, a new character who is referred to in the text as either Shadow or Nick.

[A]

Nick. Shadow.

[B]

I don't know. Are there any spoilers in opera? No. Should we go ahead and say who? This guy.

[A]

No spoilers in opera. Well, it's interesting because his last name is Shadow, a lot of people consider him to be a little bit of an alter ego of Tom, but I think it's worse than that. And I believe you think that as well.

[B]

I do, yeah. And I didn't really. I wouldn't see him as an alter ego to Tom, exactly. I think that is almost too neat. He is the Devil, literally Lucifer. Just to be honest about it. He is. Yeah. He's Old Nick. That's why he's called Nick. That's a common nickname for the Devil. He is there to try and tempt Tom to basically forfeit his soul by fulfilling his wishes and to make a deal with him to put him in a position where his soul will be forfeit. And, yeah, I don't see him as a foil or sort of a shadow version of Tom because he is so much smarter than Tom, frankly. That's the reason.

[A]

So much smarter.

[B]

Yes. An evil genius. He is yards beyond Tom at all times and is really puppeteering everything for most of this opera. But he is here to offer Tom everything he could have possibly wished. And he poses as. I don't know, a lawyer sort of figure, a sort of steward who has come from an uncle Tom doesn't seem to have known he had, who has passed away and left Tom a fortune.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, Tom, to his credit, says, wait, my parents never met. He questions this weird coincidence of this man showing up and Nick again, he's so much smarter. He's like, oh, they were estranged, don't worry about it. He lived overseas. But, you know, he's got a. He's got an easy explanation. And because the news that Nick brings about this uncle is so welcome, there are no more questions asked. Because the news is the uncle has died and you are his sole heir. You are now a rich man. He wished to be rich and here it happened, right?

[B]

And I think the reason Tom doesn't question it for too long is he sort of sees it as like, well, that's what fate would bring to me because I deserve it. That's what he was just singing about, that he has kept himself witty and handsome and ready for the fortune to fall upon me. So, of course, here it comes. This doesn't have no precedent in literature, obviously. A famous example, Jane Eyre. She becomes rich because she finds out she is an uncle she never knew about who died.

[A]

It happens.

[B]

It does happen. But in this case, it's very clear to the audience from the beginning that that is a farce.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, well. And Nick also says, do you have friends here? Call them out. So he delivers this news not just to Tom, but to also to Anne and her father. True love. And Tom is struck and he does connect it in his brain that I wished only once and it's happened. He is so excited and so is Anne. And father True love is on board so far, yes.

[B]

I mean, I guess he's just so happy that his main problem with Tom being that Tom is lazy, but his second, you know, that can't be cured. Maybe. But his secondary problem, that Tom is sort of profligate with money, that seems to be cured here. So I guess we're going along with it and it seems like a really positive thing, but the main sticking point is going to be that you can't just sort of remain rusticated in the country if you've just gotten a fortune. The place to go is London, of course.

[A]

But Nick doesn't just present it as, you need to go have fun in London. He's like, no, there's paperwork to be done, there's inheritance. And Tom initially doesn't want to go, but Truelove says, no, you're a responsible man now, you have to do the responsible thing. Go see the attorneys, the solicitors, whatever you need to do. Go see the people and get this taken care of.

[B]

Well, I mean, Nick knows his audience. He's talking to true love there, not really to Tom. When he says there's some responsibility involved in this, you're right there.

[A]

And Tom knows he doesn't know how to navigate all this and says, well, you'll stay with me and help me, won't you? And tell me I've never employed anyone before. What do I pay you?

[B]

Yes. And Nick says, well, you don't know what my services are worth. Why don't we give it a try and then you can tell me after a year and a day what you think they're worth. I have to say here.

[A]

Ominous.

[B]

I like to note when characters very clearly don't read. This to me. Shows me that Tom has never picked up a book in his life. Because if anyone ever says to you, in a year and a day, that is trouble language right there. That always means you're making a bargain with somebody. It's in fairy tales, it's in mythology, and that is a real, a real warning sign. Not to mention that this man just doesn't need any payment for a full year. Should probably ring some alarm bells in your head. But dear, sweet, innocent Tom just. He says, I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. And we're off to London.

[A]

Yeah, sounds fair to me. That's great. He's totally there. And you mentioned the Year in a Day. We know about the wishes. There will be three wishes, of course, so early on you get not only these very earthy people, these very real people who are sort of caricatures or archetypes, but you also get some very explicit fairy tale elements, like these wishes, like the Year in a Day, the devil showing up. To me, that resonates with Stravinsky's desire to use the harpsichord to find inspiration in the 18th century. Because during the 18th century, the majority, the vast majority of operas would employ supernatural elements. That was part of the spectacle and entertainment you were expecting. It was part of what made stories worthy of spending all this time and effort to make an opera. So again, that's another way that Stravinsky's harking back here. And it's not just Stravinsky, it's Stravinsky, Auden, Kalman. They're all doing this together. Well, off to London he is going to go. But before he goes, we have to have him Promise to true love, Father true love. That he's going to come back to fetch Father true love. And Anne. We get the sense that it's just the two of them in the family there. And we have a happy little trio where they're saying goodbye, they're expressing their thoughts about what's happening next. And each one of them has a different take on this, which is one of those things that opera does so well.

[B]

Yes. Tom is. You can just tell he's already looking forward to what a success he's going to be with this money. That was the missing piece. He was already handsome and witty and dazzling, and now all he needed was the funds to take London by storm.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And he even talks a lot about gambling metaphors. He says, who can play and who wins. This is going to adorn my career. Now that I have the funds to play, I will win. More alarm bells, more red flags. And, you know, she's happy, but she's also sad. There's some foreboding there and she's trying to kind of keep it together, but she's gonna miss him. And then true love. He is worried that this easy fortune could encourage Tom's worst qualities to multip.

[C]

Thousand wisdom and witch. We always knew the progress of a race.

[A]

Here we have the end of the first scene of the first act, and Nick, just to the audience only for our benefit, tells us that the progress of this rake has begun. You could just see him rubbing his hands together. He's ready. He's going to get that year in a day thing. It's going to work out great. He believes.

[B]

Yeah. An easy mark.

[A]

Mm.

[B]

So we go to London, but we immediately go to a London brothel. There's no. No in between. No. Here's Trafalgar Square. Here's Big Ben. It's just immediately into a brothel. And I think for good reason. Nick chooses this as the first location that Tom sees in London. Nick has a relationship of some kind with the madam at this brothel. He speaks to her as if they are old friends. She seems happy to see him again. So we see that perhaps he's brought other victims here in the past.

[A]

Most likely, yes.

[B]

Yes. But we begin here, not with Nick and Tom, but with a chorus of other rakes. I love a men's chorus. And I love a men's chorus. Carousing and drinking. So this is one of my favorite scenes.

[C]

Sat occasion to come home by the.

[B]

I think it's very notable that Stravinsky immediately dumps us into this scene because there is an Element where Hogarth is moralizing about all of this and we've met these great, wonderful, morally good people. But sin is fun. Like, you know, it has to be fun or people wouldn't do it. And I think he does a great job. Stravinsky does a great job of showing us that this is fun, this is a great time. And Tom is going to be a little bit interested in it.

[A]

Yes, yes. Because Nick, in introducing Tom, says, well, I am preparing you for the delights of manhood, as a godfather would do. And it just makes your skin crawl when all of this is being said. And Tom has some reservations at this stage. He's having fun, but he's a little bit concerned that he's maybe doing something wrong. But he's so overwhelmed by the atmosphere and all of the people having a good time.

[B]

Yes. And there's the madam we've mentioned before. Her name is Mother Goose.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which I think is meant to be. I mean, obviously a reference to Mother Goose tales. This sort of fairy tales, moralizing tales for children, I think is meant to be sort of like, these are the lost boys and girls. There's a sense of infinite childhood and pleasure and just no responsibilities in this place. And she is the one who's corralling them all and keeping them there. And she is going to catechize him. She's going to ask him questions that he'll have to answer almost as if he's in school. And she gets him to this place where he's more ready to partake in these activities by getting him to admit that the thing that should be his teacher and the thing he should follow is whatever the inclinations of nature are. So. So whatever he sort of feels is right is right. And that, of course, is very antithetical to Christian morality. But we are in a brothel, after all.

[A]

We are in a brothel. And to calm Tom's fears, Nick also says, don't worry about it. Time doesn't matter in here. And he literally makes the clock go backwards. Get more of this supernatural influence. He says, don't be afraid. You can repent at your leisure. Just enjoy this. Now, Tom has some hesitations. In spite of all of the encouragement, he's focusing on the shame that he's going to feel. And he says, oh, Goddess, forget me not, lest I perish. Be close to me in my darkest hour. And if I call on you with your sacred name and. Is he talking about a goddess? Is he talking about Anne and referring to her as a goddess?

[B]

Yeah, I think it's A little bit.

[A]

Of both here and the women there want to continue to encourage him towards pleasure. And they're vying to see who's going to have the honor. Mother Goose steps in and says, no, no, I'm going to be the one to bring him into manhood. He's mine.

[C]

My sorrow and my shame. Lord of lady, before God, Goddess, O forget me not lest I perish made Call upon thy sacred name.

[B]

Sad.

[C]

Tonight I exercise my Adelaide and claim him Far be pride.

[A]

This is opera for everyone. And we are listening to Igor Stravinsky's the Rake's Progress. And he's making progress along the rake path, I would say, Kathleen.

[B]

Yes, well, he's visited a brothel. He's met some. Some ladies of the evening and some other rakes and has been taken away off stage to be initiated into the joys of manhood. We're going to use a lot of euphemisms here.

[A]

Sure. And. And Nick Shadow, the devil, finishes off that scene in the brothel by wishing him sweet dreams and a threat that when you wake, you die. I mean, there are lots of these little ominous comments thrown in, and it's a bit of a contrast to the. The cheery music that we've had up till then. In the third scene of the first act, we are back in the countryside at the home of Anne and Father Truelove.

[B]

Yes. And Anne tells us that some time has passed and it's not clear how long he's been gone, but she has expected to hear from him for sure since he's been gone and has not heard from him and he has not sent for her, which he said he would. And so she is starting to really worry about him and miss him.

[A]

Yeah, it's sad. And there's a lot of her kind of working things out in her own head here, and she feels that something's wrong and he might need her. Her help, her encouragement. He might need her. She does have to work it through in her head about her responsibilities to her father, who's all alone without her as well.

[B]

Yeah. I think one of the interesting things about Anne here is that she doesn't seem to. She doesn't seem to think he has abandoned her emotionally, really. She's worried that he's done that, but she's decides that he needs help. Like, she's not angry at him. She's sad and she is worried. She's not angry like, oh, he's left me and broken up with me and I'm alone now. It's more, something must be wrong because he's so true to her in her mind that for him to have left her without a word, something must be terribly wrong. She still has faith in him and she decides that the only thing she can do as a true lover is to go to him and help him.

[A]

Yes. And it's so interesting to me when she's working this through about father and Tom both needing her, she says, well, my father's a strong man, but Tom is not a strong man. She calls on God to protect him and strengthen her resolve.

[B]

Yeah, she's a very clear eyed character, which I appreciate about her. She has no illusions about who this man is. She knows him. She gets that he isn't strong, she gets that he is lazy and she loves him still, which is interesting. I think you could have painted her as more naive, I think, but she's not naive at all.

[A]

When you read about the creation, the process of creation for this opera, some have said that if Stravinsky just did a straight setting of her words, she'd kind of come off as a flat cardboard, sappy character. And she, she truly does not. When you see this full opera again, the plug that I put in every show that I can, please, if you have an opportunity to see this opera in full, please do so. She's not flat, she's determined. And even Auden gave Stravinsky full credit for that. He said, I didn't write her that way. Coleman same thing. We didn't write her that way. They didn't actually particularly like Anne. They needed her as a vehicle to tell the story. But Stravinsky really made her a person. I mean, yeah, there's a little bit of she's too good to be true, but she's also very much a person. And when she's having trouble. When I saw the whole opera, I was deeply, deeply moved. And this one, she sings right here. I go to him. I just think it's, it's powerful. This is a determined person to do what she can for someone that she loves.

[C]

Love cannot. Folder.

[B]

Cannot Desert.

[C]

Submit.

[A]

Kathleen I do like that song that San sings about needing to go to Tom and strengthening her resolve through her song.

[B]

I do too. Yeah.

[A]

The opera as a whole. But this piece in particular is one that people say, oh, that sounds like Donizetti, that sounds like Rossini. And it's a moment for me to say there were many accusations when this was first heard by the critics, by the public, accusations of pastiche cobbling together these older art forms. And part of that is self conscious using of older Art forms by Stravinsky. And part of it was really meant as a deep cut and criticism that Stravinsky was not being original. Now, musicians who spend more and more time with this will say that that doesn't make any sense. Maybe you hear a few bits that sound like Mozart. In fact, Stravinsky himself said, I had recently seen Cosi fan Tutti and I found that inspirational. But I just wanted to acknowledge that a lot of the criticism of this, it doesn't seem to hold up, is that there were too many things taken from earlier composers.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, that criticism was leveled at poets and writers during this time constantly too. I mean, it's not in any way a criticism that they. That's unique to Stravinsky. Wrestling with your ancestors is the plot du jour, I would say, for writers at this time. We see this in especially TS Eliot Writes the Wasteland and all these other poems that very specifically are about. Is it possible to write anything new when there's been so much before? And when we study all the same things and have all the same references as writers, we have the same education. Is it possible for you to create something that isn't pastiche at this point? And that was the question they were all asking themselves, and why you get some things that seem completely avant garde during this time period and Stravinsky very much is a part of that is an attempt to make something new.

[A]

Absolutely, yeah. So I wanted to acknowledge those criticisms are out there, but I think that's a great way to put it into context. Well, we're about to start Act 2, but I will note that Auden himself has told us the worst of the rakery happens between Act 1 and Act 2. Off stage, we don't see is a feeling inspired by those different series of engravings of pictures that Hogarth made, that these are moments, snapshots in this man's life. And we're getting a lot more of it filled in with this story, but not all of it. We know he's going down this path. He's been initiated and much raikery occurs. And now in the beginning of Act 2, we find him in his very own house, very nice house in London. After all, he's a rich man, he hasn't spent all of his money. Is he happy?

[B]

Oh, far from it. Yes. It's interesting that the rakery does tend to happen off stage, but we can imagine what's been going on. The gambling, the late nights, the women, the wine, the song. It has all led Tom to a place where he realizes that he is so bored by it.

[A]

The sameness.

[B]

Yeah. It's an interesting reaction to it. And I think a sort of attitude of boredom with life is something I tend to associate with the character of the Rake. Because the idea is you are so worldly, you've seen it all, you've experienced it all, and you have to kind of constantly. And this is part of the danger of it, you have to push your limits more and more, you have to gamble more, you have to have more seductions. You can't possibly be satisfied with a simple meal. It's got to be more and more elaborate and more food and more furnishings, et cetera. So you get to a point where there's nothing more to do. You've seen it all, you've done it all, you've pushed all your limits. And that's where Tom is. He is just. Just so bored.

[A]

Yeah. And one quick. One quick thought he has is like, who. Who around here is honest? He's like, I can only think of one person who's honest. Too much shame. I dare not think of her.

[B]

He's still thinking about Anne. Yes. And he. He says one of the things that bores him is all these mothers that are trying to marry their daughters off to him, who. They seem like they're charming and. And good women, but they're really just the same as the prostitutes that he's been in the past scene with. Yeah. He's just. He's entirely bored. And he finds himself making a second wish at the end of his musings here. And he says, I just wish that I were happy.

[A]

Yes. And enter Nick.

[B]

Right on cue, a wish will summon him.

[A]

And so it does.

[B]

Yes. And Nick has a very strange solution to this problem.

[A]

Oh, absolutely. How to be happy. Be free. If you want to be happy. How to be free.

[B]

This is very interesting from a philosophical perspective. I think there's some elements here of Eastern philosophy really, that the. The only way to be happy is to actually rid yourself of desire. That. That. That need to constantly desire more and more is what making you unhappy. And if you were only free of desire, you could be. So he says, what you have to do is you have to marry a woman that you don't want, that you don't desire. And that means you're free of the desire for women.

[A]

Right. Because you don't follow what you must do, what you ought to do. You do something unexpected. That shows freedom. I mean, it's hard to follow his logic if you're really thinking for yourself.

[B]

Yeah. It's surreal. It fits with this is Mel Melting clocks logic. It's a little bit. It's definitely out there. And he says what you've got to do is you've got to marry the bearded lady at the circus.

[A]

Yeah, her name is Baba the Turt.

[B]

Quite literally, quite literally. That is what he says you should do.

[A]

He brings up a flyer advertising her.

[B]

Performance and Tom is at first just like what he says, have you taken leave of your senses? But Nick is a silver tongue and he convinces him that that is the way that you have to escape the tyrants of appetite. So desire and conscience. So what you want and what you should do in order to escape the trap between those two, you have to do something that is just doesn't make any sense, basically. And so Tom is persuaded and all.

[A]

Sense of boredom is gone and he's excited about this new course of action.

[B]

It is hard to be bored when you're trying to get engaged to the bearded lady at the circus. I guess.

[C]

My tale shall be told both by young and by old, by young and by old, by young and by old. Come, master, prepare your fate to dare your favorite narration throughout the nation remembered by all in cottage pole with song and laughter forever after. Perfumed, well dressed and looking your best, A matter of virtual eyes fainting fashion, your carriage on and upon your tongue the gallant speeches that cupidity it is our tongues will not tire.

[A]

You're listening to Opera for Everyone, a radio show and podcast that embraces drama and story through love of music.

[B]

Opera for Everyone airs Sundays from 9 to 11am Mountain Time on 89.1 Khol, Wyoming's only community radio station.

[A]

If you'd like to hear more conversations about opera, please subscribe to the Opera for Everyone podcast. And if you subscribe and rate us, you'll be helping with our mission to bring opera to everyone by helping others to find this show.

[B]

Stay with us. The second half of today's show is coming right up.

[A]

Welcome back to the second half of Opera for Everyone, where today Kathleen Vanderwille and I are discussing the Rake's Progress, an opera by Igor Stravinsky with the librettists W.H. auden and Chester Colman. What heavyweights. Chester Colman is not as well known a name, though he does completely deserve to be known for this. But Auden is known for so many things. Stravinsky. So many things. What a matchup it was of talents in this piece of art that they created.

[B]

It's true. It is nice to see Auden really branching out from poetry into an opera libretto, too. I don't know if this was his first or only, but I do know that please tell us.

[A]

He had written an opera libretto previously for an opera that came about with Benjamin Britton. They were both British men, but they chose to write an opera about Paul Bunyan in America.

[B]

Oh, interesting.

[A]

It wasn't well received. He didn't have Coleman Colman. One of the great gifts that he brought to this collaboration was his sense of theatricality. For example, the wishes that get made throughout this, the three wishes. Auden envisioned it as him yawning, which might make sense in a written story, but Colman's like, my friend that is not going to play on the stage. It looked like he's trying to sing and he doesn't know what to do. So Kalman's the one who said, no, let's make him say I wish for. But anyway, it's. It's an amazing set of talents that got put onto this. Onto this work.

[B]

Absolutely, yeah.

[A]

And as we've said before, if you get a chance to see this in any form streaming, someone's playing it, please do. And I would like to just give a shout out to the Des Moines Metro Opera. They have a summer festival that you and I, Kathleen, were fortunate enough to convene in Des Moines to see the reg's progress. We've been talking about doing this show because of the interesting nature of it and because of your love for Auden. And we made a special effort to go to Des Moines and they just knocked my socks off. What a beautiful production they did.

[B]

It was wonderful. And doesn't seem like this is maybe performed as often as some of the other ones that you may know offhand. So it's lovely to see an opera company performing a piece that you maybe can't see every year at the Met.

[A]

If you see it playing somewhere that you can get to, I strongly recommend it. And there are other ways to see it. YouTube is a great resource for opera lovers as well. I even found a YouTube posting, and many times with operas on YouTube, it's just they put a picture of the COVID art and they play the opera, which is a nice way to access the music. But this one, it was fun. Somebody took the time to put in the Hogarth pictures in the different sections as the opera moved along. And it was the very same set of singers that we have here on the CD that we're using that were in that particular YouTube posting. But I enjoyed revisiting it that way with Hogarth up on the screen. Well, let's take a moment to acknowledge the people who created the this wonderful CD that we've been listening to. Excerpts of this recording of the Rake's Progress was made in London in 1979 with the London Symphony Orchestra under conductor John Elliot Gardner and the Monteverdi Choir.

[B]

Tom Rakewell is sung by Ian Bostridge, Anne Truelove by Deborah York, Nick Shadow by the Welsh Bryn Terfel, who happens to be one of my favorite opera singers. Baba the Turk by Anne Sophie von Otter, Mother Goose by Anne Howells. And True Love's father is sung by Martin Robinson. And Selim is sung by Peter Bronder.

[A]

Selim is another one of those wonderful names where it really describes what this man does. He's an auctioneer. We'll meet him before too long. Okay, opera helmet quiz time.

[B]

So in the first half, we have met Tom Rakewell, who is at the time the opera begins. A young man who doesn't have a whole lot to do and is courting his neighbor who is named Anne Truelove. They are in this sort of pastoral, beautiful love. They're laying in the field and talking about how much they love each other. But her father is a bit worried that he doesn't seem to be very industrious. She. She loves him all the same. But when he gets offered a job by Anne's father, he doesn't seem to want to work, and he just wishes that he could just be rich and live his life as a lazy rich gentleman, basically. And this does not sit well with Anne's father. Now his wishes are all fulfilled when all of a sudden he meets this man who has sought him out, named Nick. Nick. Shadow. Nick is actually the devil, but Tom does not have the wit about him to see that. And Nick says, I'm going to give you everything you've ever wanted. You are an heir to this fortune for a man. You've never met your uncle. And we're going to go to London and meet the lawyers and you'll be very rich. So Tom, while initially hesitant to leave Anne, decides he must go and seek his fortunes and live the life he's meant to live. He says, I'll send for you later. But of course, he forgets that promise. Anne is very sad to see him go. And when Tom gets to London, he is immediately pulled by Nick into this shadowy, libertine world of rakes and prostitutes and gamblers. He meets a madam at a brothel who initiates him into some of the mysteries of life. And then when we last left Tom, he had come gotten to this place where he was so bored with his libertinism that he was begging for something new to happen and for happiness to come to him. And as that is another wish, Nick is willing to fulfill it in his own way. And Nick suggests that the only way to truly be happy and to get outside of the moral strictures that he still feels tugging at him is to do something crazy and unexpected. And so he says, you should marry the bearded lady in the circus. And that is where we left Tom agreeing to do that.

[A]

Yes, they're excited. They're off for another adventure. And there are little bits leading up to this where he briefly references Anne in his memory. And it's very clear he has a lot of shame about his behavior. Not enough to change it. But he feels no longer worthy of Anne. He feels that he has simply done too many things wrong, that such a wonderful young woman deserves better than him, and he just doesn't think he's worthy of her.

[B]

He's right, of course.

[A]

It's an interesting meditation here on free will. Does Tom have. Could he have said no to Shadow at some point along? Could he have signed the papers in London and taken his money back to the countryside? It's. It's an interesting thing to ponder. I mean, he doesn't do it, but it's interesting.

[B]

It is interesting because we have to ask ourselves, when has he damned himself? Is the first handshake. And usually this is represented as a literal handshake between Tom and Nick when they first meet. Is that the thing that signed away his soul or right? Are there times when he could have gotten out of it? It isn't clear, but I like to think that there's a reason why it had to be a year and a day. So there must have been opportunities for him to change his mind.

[A]

Yeah. And we've mentioned there are musical influences working on Stravinsky, but it's also worth mentioning there are literary influences working here as well. Besides the fairy tale elements that we've mentioned. You and I have done three separate shows on the Faust legend, and they're definitely shades of Faust here.

[B]

Yeah, for sure. This idea of a deal with the devil. Faust is the most famous version of that. And a lot of. A lot of other deal with the devil type stories tend to take the shape that Faust put together. We have this idea that usually there's a woman that's involved in it, too, that there's a beautiful woman that is unattainable in some way or has been left behind. And that the main character wants. And part of why he sells his soul is to have her. We see a bit of an inversion of that here, where he sort of sells his soul to leave her.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And instead will be attaching himself to someone he doesn't want to. But, yes, there's definitely some Faustian elements here. I will also say, too, the early 20th century, there was a lot of interest in Jane Austen and the Regency period. In the late 18th century, you start to see Georgette Heyer, who is a young woman writing at this time, starts to write her novels that are these romances that are set sort of in the same world as Jane Austen. And this is when you start to see a mythologization of the Regency period in England, the very early 19th century, late 18th century, which is very famous for having characters who are rakish. Lord Byron being probably the most famous, this sort of poet. Rake. Famous rake who ended rather terribly after all of his raking about. So Hogarth has been created these paintings more in the 1730s, but this character continues in literature up through the 19th century. And one of the most famous rakes, if you are familiar with Jane Austen, is Wickham from Pride and Prejudice. And in some ways, Tom reminds me a little bit of Wickham. This character who is lazy, doesn't want to do the hard work of being a clergyman in that instance, and so instead gets someone to give him some money and then goes to London, of course, spends it all and ends up unworthy of a good woman, even when he wants to attach himself to one. So, yes, there are a lot of literary elements. I think anytime I hear the word rake, I think of Jane Austen. So I'm sure that was the case with Stravinsky as well.

[A]

Yeah. And just to circle back to the premiere of this opera, we mentioned that Stravinsky was living in America, Auden was living in America, Kalman also. And it was written because Stravinsky wanted to create this opera. But then once it was done, he needed to find a place to produce it. And the only place that was willing to make it financially viable, worthwhile, was, in fact, Venice at one of their festivals. And they brought in the orchestra and the chorus of La Scala from Milan, and it was a huge success. So that was 1951 and 1952, it premiered at the Opera Comique in Paris. 1953, it premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, 1953 in Edinburgh with the Glyndebourne Opera Company, and then at the Glyndbourne Festival in 1954. But the one I want to just mention and highlight is 1957. It premiered in Santa Fe. It was its first production and it was the very first season of this brand new brainchild of John Crosby, the Santa Fe Opera Festival. And it was in that very first season. He wasn't the conductor, but he was there to help them prepare. And it was considered the highlight of the season, this new opera. I mean, they didn't world premiere it, but it was a new opera that people were buzzing about. And Santa Fe developed this very close, mutually beneficial relationship with Stravinsky. In fact, in 1962, Stravinsky's 80th birthday, Santa Fe celebrated him by producing six Stravinsky operas that season. And it's just a summer season. It's an outdoor theater, by the way. Still is. They put a roof over it now. It didn't have one originally. Periodically things would get rained out. But the relationship between Santa Fe and Stravinsky is worth noting. And I will also say, speaking of worth noting on Opera for everyone, episode 115, I speak with the author Erica Minor about one of her books that's set in the Santa Fe Opera Festival. And while I'm referencing older episodes from our show, episode 100, Kathleen, that's the one you and I did on two one act Stravinsky ballets operas, Oedipus Rex and Persephone. That's the only other time we've discussed Stravinsky on Opera for Everyone.

[B]

That was my, I wouldn't say my introduction to Stravinsky. I think I knew Rite of Spring, his ballet, but I didn't know anything else besides Rite of Spring. So I feel like I've really learned so much on Opera for Everyone about Stravinsky. And yeah, I mean, it makes sense to me to choose this as an opera to sort of kick off this new endeavor just because, I mean, it's in the most positive way. It's a highly accessible opera, partly because it's in English, but also just, I think the themes as we've referenced are very recognizable. I think you could see many young men you may have come across in the character of Tom and I think the Temptations of Easy, wealth of Gambling, et cetera, it's very relevant in many ages. And also this is honestly quite fun. It's just whether we've expressed that enough. It's a very fun opera to watch. It's just, it's bawdy, it's funny and just absolutely very engaging. So I highly recommend, as we've said, to check this one out.

[A]

Plenty of camp moments for sure. And it gets amped up a bit in the camp when we finally do meet Baba the Turk. But there are these poignant, poignant moments. I haven't had an opera make me cry in a while and this one made me cry at the end. Not at the very end, but it's near the end, so it's. It does. That range of emotions, it's very human, this opera. Well, speaking of meeting Baba the Turk, I mean, that name, it feels like we're insulting someone here. But this is the character in this show. And I'm sorry, she's quite an interesting one. She seems again like she's going to be a cardboard caricature. But she doesn't stay that way.

[B]

No, she doesn't. And I think this was another instance where the bad girl really kind of gets all the best lines. Poor Anne, we've said. I do think she is much more fleshed out than she could have been, but it's sometimes hard to see. And there are a couple scenes where the two of them are together and Anne looks very prosaic next to Papa. She's exotic, Is exotic. She's literally a bearded lady. So I would say the weirdest part of all this is that she's bearded. That is not the case in the Hogarth paintings. She is not a bearded lady.

[A]

She's the old duchess. In fact, she was the old duchess originally when Auden was doing this, but then he and Colman said, oh, let's have some fun with this.

[B]

Yeah. And it is fun. It's a very, very, very different feeling. I think to replace this character with this circus performer during this time period, to be an actress or to be a performer as a woman, you were just automatically a lower class person. Generally speaking, like it just that you would be considered to be a lower class and you would be considered. They called it the demimonde, which is the world of prostitutes, the world of courtesans, et cetera. And you were not acceptable in society. You wouldn't be invited to a ball. But you had a lot fewer strictures on what you could do. You could earn your own money. A lot of men would support these women. And Baba is written in this opera like she is a person like that. She is not just a bearded lady. She's famous, she is desired, beloved. Yeah. And in many ways, I think is treated in the text almost like a famous courtesan or a famous opera singer. Opera dancer, very much so. But she also just happens to be bearded, which adds to the mystique. If they had kept the original Hogarth. They think it's a different feeling. It's him marrying an older woman for money. Whereas in this instance he is not doing that. He's in fact marrying her to sort of just buck tradition, to be strange, to be avant garde, to prove his.

[A]

Freedom and therefore have happiness. I mean, that's what, that's how Nick talked us through it. Well, some of this stuff is all like his courtship, his meeting, how he talks this beloved performer into marrying him. We don't know any of that. All we know is that when we come into this scene, there's a sedan chair, one of those enclosed sedan chairs where she is located. And we've had Anne out. She's looking for Tom, she's looking for Tom and she in fact finds Tom. And they have the most awkward possible exchange.

[B]

Yes. And Baba the whole time is waiting in the sedan chair while they're having this love scene. And she kind of keeps saying, like, hey, let me out. Why aren't you paying attention to me? And yes, it is. It's high comedy, but also painful. There's an awkwardness to the whole thing. Poor Anne, poor Baba, poor everyone.

[A]

Right at this point, Baba just is annoyed. Who is it? Who is keeping you? This is very strange and it's a little surprising when he finally answers, baa, Baa. Who says, who is this woman you're talking to? Oh, it's a milkmaid to whom I am indebted. Talk about an insult for Anne. But he does finally introduce Baba and say, this is my wife.

[B]

Yes, it seals their fate, I think. Obviously Tom does a lot of things that aren't great, but this is the thing he can't take back. You can't, you can't fix it. You can't be with Ann if you've married somebody else. Divorce doesn't really exist during this time period. I mean, it does, but it's. I mean, far beyond what anyone would do on a regular basis. It's a very involved, expensive, drawn out process to divorce somebody. And so this is it. Tom has. Has taken the step that will keep him forever away from Anne.

[A]

And there's a trio here with these three characters which I find fascinating, where we have Tom and Anne being quite serious. And at this point, Baba is still just trying to figure out what's going on. Be annoyed. She's used to being adored, admired, fawned over. That's not what's happening.

[C]

Sh.

[B]

Never.

[C]

You are. Your promise is enough is enough.

[A]

Well, in that scene we had Baba plus Tom and Anne. But Ann has said, well, I guess I'm the one who was unworthy, and what else is there to say? And the following scene, we are inside of Tom's house. Again, much more cluttered. All of Baba's things that she's collected in her exploits of touring the world and being admired and gaining fame and money. Picture the breakfast table where the man is paying no attention and this woman, Baba, is just chattering on about things that seem entirely inconsequential.

[B]

Yeah. An interesting little note here about this scene is Baba is, as you said, she's talking about all these treasures that these people have given her, and this is how people in that time period of this class would have sustained themselves. Was portable wealth to get a man who was your patron to pay for things you could then resell, like jewels. Or in this case, she has, like.

[A]

A stuffed bird that she's really into random antiquities.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. She has only portable wealth because that's what she could do. So to her, I think, in a way, this is. It's meaningful for her to be talking about these things because this is how she's built her career. But Tom is completely. Let me put it this way, her being bearded is the least obnoxious thing about her. To him, she is vain, she is flighty, she has a very bad temper. And he is absolutely back to where he was when we saw him. And he was bored. This is the same thing. That the marriage has also bored him and he is deeply regretting it.

[A]

Well, yeah. Finally at the end, she realizes he's not responding at all to what she's saying. Speak to me. And his answer just is why? And she kind of loses it. I love the recording that we have because as she's. We'll listen to some of this. But as she's realizing that she's not being honored as a wife, that she's not being respected by her husband, you can hear she's picking up bits of pottery and things that are breakable, and she's crashing them to express her anger.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, I love Baba. She. She's a great character in this. She really livens everything up because things are a bit maudlin. Tom is bored, he's sad. And Anne, of course, is also very sad. And she comes in with this righteous anger. And it is righteous. No matter how obnoxious we may find her or Tom may find her, he should, as her husband, be showing her respect, and he is not. And from the beginning, he married her for the wrong Reasons he then brought another woman immediately into her presence that he'd had a relationship with, and now he is ignoring her, so she has every right to throw some crockery at his head.

[C]

Come, sweet, come. Why so glum? Smile at Baba, who loving smiles at you. Do not frown, husband dear. Sit down. Why is this?

[B]

Why is this?

[C]

I can see? I know, I know, I know. He's your bliss, your bliss, your love, your love, your love, your love. While I your love me. I'm hated, I'm hated.

[A]

This is opera for everyone. And we're talking about the Rake's Progress by Igor Stravinsky. That was Baba, rake's wife, we just heard. She's pretty annoyed, as you could tell from the crashing things breaking while she's singing. But she moves from saying, you've abused me, you've scorned me, you've neglected me. She moves from that to that woman you were talking to before. She may be young and pretty and wonderful, but don't think. Don't think you're gonna have her. She will never, ever, ever be your wife. And Tom has a very odd response to this.

[B]

Well, I had some questions about this, so I'd love to see what your thoughts are on this. In the production that we saw, he silences her by throwing a birdcage over her head, or I believe Stravinsky's version, he throws his wig onto her head.

[A]

Yeah, Wig is what's usually described. That's what's in the libretto.

[B]

But in the libretto, it also says he stands up and he knocks her as if he hits her. And in this instance, when we were watching it, and I had not. I didn't know what the libretto was gonna say, I assumed that he was beating her, that he hit her, because there's definitely that energy in this scene, like he wants her to stop talking, and he's very angry. Whatever it is he throws over her head, it's magical in some way. It immobilizes her and she's.

[A]

It's magical. I don't think there's any physical violence. He silences her, but he does it by. Essentially, it's a magical device.

[B]

Then at the end of the scene, he says he's buried her, that she's dead, which I think is interesting. So I think there's some metaphorical, probably aspects here where his darkness has taken him to a place where he has, metaphorically, at least, removed this person from his life, which is exactly what he.

[A]

Was doing at the breakfast table, imprisoning.

[B]

Her or hitting her or something. Yeah. And it's played for comedy, but it is really dark, I think.

[A]

Oh, for sure. He shuts her down. He just shuts her down. There is no implication, I don't even think in the libretto and certainly not in any stagings that I've seen. There is no implication of physical violence. But he's just mentally shut down.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And the last thing, he's like, why should I even talk to you? And she goes off. And he's like, I can't deal. I cannot deal with this. And so the wig is this. This little device or the production you and I saw, it was a birdcage, and she's just immobilized and quieted, and there she sits in the chair and. But we know he doesn't bury her because we. We're not done with her yet. We will see her again. Yeah.

[B]

She just kind of sits there and gathers dust like a knickknack on a shelf. Yeah. It is weird. It's a strange. It's maybe the weirdest thing that happens in the show.

[A]

Yeah. There's supernatural elements throughout the show.

[B]

This is also the only time that we've ever seen Tom do something supernatural without Nick, though, which I think is also very interesting. Nick appears in a minute, but Tom is just sitting by himself with no Nick in this scene when he performs magic, which is very strange, too, because every other instance of magic being performed is by Nick, not by Tom.

[A]

And you don't know. We know that Nick is close at hand. So Nick could have had.

[B]

I think it's important what we see. I think that shows that Tom has changed and is taking on more of the elements of Nick's character.

[A]

The rake's progress. Well, Tom's worn out from it all. He goes to sleep. Nick appears and is there when Tom wakes up. And Tom recounts a very strange dream that he's had.

[B]

Yes. At first he wakes up and he says, I wish it were true. And I just want to note that that's our third wish.

[A]

Third wish.

[B]

Third wish is always. That's always the one that gets you in trouble, too. Yes. He recites this very strange dream where he dreamt that he had invented a machine that could turn rock into loaves of bread. And that that machine fed the poor, basically, and that he became known as this great humanitarian for creating this machine.

[A]

Yeah. What a fantastic thing. And Tom is extremely excited about this. Not just because he will be seen as a great humanitarian. He will benefit people. He'll lose a little bit of his shame. And he says, oh, Could I be forgiven? Is this my repentance, perhaps? Will I deserve Ann? Nick is not focused on that. Not at all. He's like, listen, just like we had. He doesn't say this part, but I'm thinking, just like we had to go to London to fill out the papers to fulfill your first wish for this wish, to mass produce machines. That takes a lot of money. We don't have that money, sir. We need investors.

[B]

Well, yes. And before that, Nick has the machine. He dreams about this machine. He tells him this. He goes, oh, does it look like this? And he goes, you know, flourish. Here it is.

[A]

Yeah. Well, Nick is amazing. What can we say?

[B]

Nick is amazing. I mean, it's getting more and more literal. Nick's ability to perform magic because he showed him the reversing time. But that was a while back. And now he's able to literally bring dreams, dreams, make them come true. And yes, he shows it to him, but we crucially see that it is fake. It is not a real Breadstone transformation machine. Nick Muggs for the audience makes it very clear that it is a fake machine and that he is tricking Tom, which I think is even more interesting, because why not create the real machine? Well, I guess the devil doesn't want world hunger to end.

[A]

No, he doesn't want it. It's just easier to trick Tom. It's not difficult for Nick to trick Tom.

[B]

Very true. So, yes, then we see that this is going to be an investment scheme, and Nick is going to talk to all of the men with money in town on Tom's behalf and get them to invest in the machine. This is another very common thing in the 18th and 19th century. These con men who would say, oh, we're building a railroad in South America. We'd love for you to invest. You're going to make all this money and then, of course, just takes the money and run.

[A]

That's not limited to the 19th century.

[B]

It's not, but it was. It boomed in the 19th century. This was something that didn't really exist a lot before the late 18th, early 19th century. And people were losing their fortunes just left, right, and center. And that was because industrialization was becoming such a thing. You know, machines like that, they didn't exist in the 16th century, but this idea of investment, too, was very new. The idea that you would give money to people, form a company and make profits was very new to this time period, too. And like some of the other evils that are ruining men like Tom, this was something that Hogarth wanted to Tell people to guard against. So we've got all the things that ruin young men, and right here we've got the bad investment scheme.

[A]

The bad investment scheme. And we know it's bad. At least in the production we saw. You felt like Nick was trying to get the audience to be excited about this. Like, hey, why don't you help out here?

[B]

Yes. Our Nick literally handed out little tickets to people like, as if you were. You were taking a bet on if this was going to succeed. It was a nice little piece of theater.

[A]

It was one. It was such good theater. Anyway, right here at the end of Act 2, once again, wish has been wished for by Tom. Nick has shown up with a solution, and Tom is really excited about what the future holds. Ingenious shadow. How could I live without you? And Nick, knowing what he's saying, says, well, you should share this news with your wife. And that's when Nick says, I don't have a wife. I. I buried her.

[C]

I have already spoken with several notable citizens concerning your invention, and they are as eager to see it as you. To show how could I live without you? I cannot wait. Let's visit them immediately. Should you not tell the good news to your wife? My wife? I have no wife. I've buried her.

[A]

In Stravinsky's the Racing Progress. We're about to start Act 3, and we're in a familiar place that looks very different. We're still in Tom's drawing room, and it's deteriorated even more. Not just cluttered, but dirty and full.

[B]

Of people, including Baba, who is right.

[A]

Where we left her.

[B]

Right where we left her, exactly. Yes. There is an auction going on because Tom has gone bust. He has lost all of his money because this device turned out to be a scam. And so all the people who've been invested were defrauded and he had to pay them back. And he has lost his entire fortune down to the fact that they have to auction off all of his belongings and Baba's belongings.

[A]

And once again, all of that happens between the two acts offstage. We just have to fill in the pieces in our own brain. It's not hard, but that has. That has happened. And there's an auctioneer and there are people clamoring because most of the things being auctioned off are the precious possessions that Baba brought to the house.

[B]

Yes. So we have an auctioneer whose name is Selim, a lovely little Dickensian name there. And he is. Once again, it's a fantastically fun scene to watch, as much as it's not fun for tomorrow. It's fun for us. And we have all of the people who are bidding on Tom's things. And Ann wanders in and she's looking for Tom, but no one's able to tell her where he is. As Anne is looking for Tom, people are telling her all sorts of things. They're saying he's dead, that he had spontaneous combustion, that he's converted and become a Methodist, that he's become a Catholic, a Jew. But for certain, what they know is that he is in debt. And so Anne is very sad to hear that the man she loves has come to this state.

[A]

Yeah. And they're selling all these little bits and pieces. But then Selim, our auctioneer, says, and now for the truly adventurous, we have something very interesting. And it's the chair with Baba sitting in it with whatever it is over her head or Tom's wig. And she's immobile and everyone's intrigued.

[B]

Yes. And the crowd knows her as soon as they see her. And this wig or whatever is sort of whipped off of her head and she comes back to consciousness. They know that it's Baba, his wife, and are amazed and astonished. And this is where, I mean, it just, it's very. This is a very surreal scene where we're far from the regular world here.

[A]

Yeah. And we even have Nick and Tom singing off stage, though. We can hear their voices together. Old wives for sale. I mean, it's just weird. It's a strange scene, but Tom's life has gotten pretty strange. And with Baba coming back to life, she notices Ann in the crowd, that milkmaid, she's. She's haunting me. But much to our surprise, I think most of us in the audience, we see that she's quite kind to Anne, calling her my child.

[B]

Yeah. This is a very different, different Baba than I think we were used to. But maybe she's had some time to reflect while she's been under the wig. Yes. And she seems to have a very good understanding of Tom. Like Tom clearly never understands Baba or cares to. But at this point, she basically says to Anne, I completely understand him. She calls him shuttle headed. He's silly, he's not a gentleman. But he isn't totally lost either. And she says, you know, if you love him and you care for him, maybe you could save him. I know he still loves you.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And is, yeah, is very kind to Anne.

[A]

She's. Yes, exactly. Very encouraging to Anne. There's no sense of jealousy or displacement. And her telling Anne that he still loves you, Anne, that Means the world to Anne.

[B]

Yes. And beyond that, Baba also says she can tell that Nick is the. He's the snake, she calls him. So Baba all of a sudden has gained this great wisdom and she's able to move the plot along nicely. And Baba herself makes sure that she lets us know she's gonna be just fine. She's gonna go back to the stage.

[A]

She's done it before, she'll do it again.

[B]

And she says, I'm not gonna do deny the people what they want, which is me.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And so everything's good with Baba, which I like. I like leaving Baba in a good place.

[A]

Yeah. Baba is after being so angry at being rejected and. And no one pays attention to her. She's like, okay, fine, I'm done. Don't want this guy and he's all yours. Good luck. But there's tenderness. There's tenderness.

[C]

And beware. I may have made a bad mistake Yet I can tell who in that pair is poisoned victim and who snake. Then go. But where shall you, my dear? The gifted lady never needs her fear. I shall go back I shall go back I shall go back and grace the stage where battle rose and and wealth attempt at all Can I deny, can I deny my time?

[B]

It's.

[C]

My self indulgent intermitso ends.

[B]

We'Re.

[A]

About to open on the second scene of the third act. It's a graveyard scene where we're about to see Tom Rakewell and Nick Shadow.

[B]

Yes, we are in a graveyard here. I do want to note quickly that this is where we really depart from Hogarth. There is no graveyard scene. There is, however, a debtor's prison scene, which I think is notable. This is not something we do anymore. But back in this time period and for several hundred years, if you were in debt and you could not pay, you went to jail and you stayed in jail until you paid your debt. And of course, most people can't pay their debts from prison, since you can't make any money in prison. So most people, when they were confined to a debtor's prison, would stay there for the rest of their lives. They were very unhealthy places, obviously, being prisons. Charles Dickens, very famously, his father was in debtors prison and he wrote a lot about that experience in some of his novels. So I think it's important for Hogarth to put Tom there because that is a very realistic depiction of what would have happened to him. Now Stravinsky takes us into a little bit more of a metaphorical realm and instead of a prison, we have A graveyard, which is, of course, a different kind of prison. And Tom is really at the end of his rope. Of course, he's found himself in a graveyard. He can no longer hide from himself that he has been with the devil. I think this is where it becomes clear to him what has happened to him and what bargains he's been making. And Nick is gleeful. He says, a year and a day have passed, and I'm just. I'm really excited because it's time for me to claim my wages from you.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Tom, of course, says, I don't have anything. I don't have any money. And Nick says, well, it's your soul that I want.

[A]

And I want it's not your money.

[B]

Yeah, I want it now.

[C]

There's something. There's something Shadow in your face that fills. That fills my soul with fear. A year and a day have passed away since Fast wish you I came all things you bid I duly did. And now my wages came. Shadow, good Shadow, be patient. I am pagan, as you know. God promise when I am rich again to pay you, to pay you all I owe. Tis not to me but a soul. Tis not your money, but your soul, which I this night keep by. Look in my eyes. Look in my eyes and recognize whom for you toss too high. Behold, behold your waiting wave. Behold still.

[A]

Well, as far as Nick Shadow is concerned, it's all over. He's one. Tom is pitiful, and Tom is, in fact, pitiful. Nick, magnanimously, or so he thinks, says, well, you can choose the method of your death. You must kill yourself. And he offers him various ways, physically sitting there in front of them. This is. This is how you can kill yourself. And Tom was just. It's just like, oh, my gosh, I'm finally putting the pieces together, I guess. I didn't have an uncle. He's finally putting it together, but he's so pitiful. And he begs. I mean, as if this is going to work. He begs Nick for mercy.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And Nick decides to have some fun with it.

[B]

Yeah. Well, this is the Faust stories teach us, and I think some other deal with the Devil stories teach us that there is this moment where you can try and beat the devil. And that's if you can get him to sort of overreach himself. Right. So there's this. Really. Right. What's the famous the Devil Went down to Georgia song, where the legend is that the violinist says, I can play this violin better than the devil. And he bets his soul against it and he wins or loses, depending on the version you listen to, and this is similar, where he, strangely, actually, Tom doesn't do anything. It's Nick who initiates this. He is like, the clock is counting down. You have to decide at the stroke of midnight. And right when it's like almost midnight, Nick says, wait a second. Let's take this one step further. And he really overreaches himself here. He had him in his hand and he says, okay, what if we just play a game to finally decide your fate? A card game. And if the devil offers you a card game for your soul, don't take it. But I guess if it's your only option, this is where you have the chance to beat him. So they do. They play a card game, a very simple card game. It's just, I'm gonna pick three cards, and if you can tell me what they are, then you can have your soul.

[A]

Seems like the Devil's in a good place to think. There's no way he can do this. And yet there are. There are moments, there are hints, and he thinks of Anne. He says, the queen of hearts. And then one of the spades used for digging graves falls over. He yells, the deuce. And he says, the two of spades. And then the devil lets us know. Oh, I'm going to be really tricky. I'm going to pick the queen of hearts again.

[B]

Yes. And it is the queen of hearts again. But Tom manages to guess that as.

[A]

Well because he hears Anne's voice off stage.

[B]

Yeah, there are moments where either the devil himself is giving it away a little bit, or there seems to be some sort of otherworldly force that is helping Tom. And this is the first time we have any idea that there is something else out there besides the devil, that there is an opposing force. There's Christianity. This is, I would say, a story markedly lacking in any sort of Christian elements. It has the devil, but no. No angels, no anything. Just Anne, I suppose, Just good people. And in this case, she represents that force. But there's also. There's other things around that that make us think maybe somebody is paying attention.

[A]

Well, the devil does not take it very well. Nick does not take it very well when he loses and he sings this powerful. I burn, I freeze. But okay, I don't get your soul, but you don't get to keep your wits. You will be insane henceforth.

[B]

Yep. So he curses him with madness. And that is the last that we see of Nick Shadow.

[C]

I burn, I burn my fleece in shame I hear my flash lavish.

[B]

My.

[C]

Own J and dams I again I sing in ice and flame, in ice and fatal, but heavens will I abate and till eternity departure I your sins, Michael. Before I go, give me some power. To pain, to reason Blind shall be.

[A]

The devil has exited, leaving his damage behind. And this final scene, there is an epilogue afterwards, but the final scene with our characters takes place in a mental hospital, the one that earns the nickname Bedlam. And that. That's in the Hogarth works as well. And Tom is pitiful, surrounded by other pitiful inmates of this asylum. And he's delusional. He thinks he's Adonis and he's waiting for Venus. There's that Venus that we mentioned would come back.

[B]

Yes. And I mean, this is once again to go back to the Hogarth. Hogarth did a good job of very realistically depicting the sort of things that could happen if you set down this path. I mean, it's overblown perhaps a little bit. Not everyone gets money and then immediately goes to a brothel. But this scene of madness we see in this opera that Nick has cursed him literally with this madness. But it's also a very understandable consequence of the kind of life that Tom has been living. If you are attending brothels very often, you will likely get syphilis, and syphilis drives you mad and you will end mad. It will kill you eventually. And that happened to a lot of people who lived their life like this because there was no such thing as penicillin to cure it. Excess drinking, losing all of your money, that sort of thing. I mean, these are real consequences for the kind of things Tom's been doing. So even with. Without the devil to curse him, it. It makes sense to see him end up here, unfortunately. And he is. He's a very pitiful figure and he is very. He's sorry for what he's done. And he is still thinking about Anne, although she's. She's Venus in his mind rather than Anne. But it is too late for him, unfortunately.

[A]

But Anne does come. Having been encouraged by Baba, she looks and looks for Tom and she does finally find him in this asylum. And the man who works there says, he's very gentle, he won't hurt you. He just thinks he's Adonis. Play along with that and please go visit him. And he is so happy to see her because he is Adonis waiting for Venus. And Venus has shown up. And she plays along.

[B]

She does. And the Adonis story, I won't get too deeply into it, but is also a tragic love story too. It's interesting he casts himself as this character who is destined to die young. Adonis was a love of Venus's who was gored by a wild boar and died very, very young. And he was just a shepherd in a field. And so he. He recognizes that there is a futility and a mortality associated with his life. Now, yes, they have this beautiful duet where she. She makes it clear that she forgives him, she loves him, but there is no curing this madness, this thing we've come to in this opera. Instead, there has to just be acceptance.

[C]

Embrace me, Venus, I've come home to lost. He has no words for absence or restraint.

[A]

After a little tenderness together, these two, Tom realizes he's exhausted. I'm exceedingly weary. And he asks her to sing him to sleep. She sings a very sweet little lullaby. And the other inmates there are interested in what she has to sing. But before too long, we have a little bit of the outside world come in again. Anne's father shows up.

[B]

Yeah, he shows up to take her home. And I think this is the most unexpected part, and the part I liked the best about this opera is Anne says, I am always gonna love him. I always hold true my vow to Tom. But she doesn't take him back into her life. She doesn't fix him. She doesn't cure him.

[A]

She can't.

[B]

Right. But I mean, you could have made it that way. This is magical. Everything, you know, her love, her tears could have cured his madness or something or other, but they don't do that. And I like that. She literally says, I don't need you anymore and I am gonna go live my life, basically. And they end by honestly hoping for his swift release from madness, that Tom will die and be returned to the earth. And Anne is going to go and live her life. And that is how this scene ends.

[A]

Yes. Well, except we do have Tom waking up wondering if he imagined at all, had his Venus ever actually show. I mean, it's really kind of breaks your heart here because she can't be with him. He's lost his mind, so he can't. It's just.

[B]

Yeah, this is.

[A]

It brings tears. It brought tears to my eyes.

[B]

It is sad though. It is. I don't know. There's a part of me that just. It's justice. He chose to live his life this way. He knew the risks and he went ahead and just ruined himself and other people too. I mean, there's other victims of this, not just Anne, but all the men who lost their money too. Oh, yeah, Poor Baba, who was just minding her own business.

[A]

Baba's gonna be fine.

[B]

Yeah. But she had to be immobilized for God knows how long. She was treated awfully. So I like the justice element of this here, that he doesn't get away with this. He has to face consequences for his actions.

[A]

Well, it is the Rake's Progress. And the last thing we hear Tom sing at the end of this scene is, weep for Adonis, whom Venus loves. And he's just. He knows it's over for him. I mean, he has these little glimmers of sanity within his delusion. The other inmates become a chorus and they mourn for him. Also not clear that he's fully died at this point, but essentially, yes. But there's an epilogue.

[B]

Yes, we have. It's very Shakespearean epilogue to me. Let's all come out and say what we meant you to take away from this.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And they say there's a moral of this story, and this is what we've been trying to tell you, that idle hands are the devil's work. If you are lazy, if you don't have any purpose in your life, then the devil will come in and he will make mischief with you. And don't be like. Don't be like Rakewell.

[A]

Yeah. And it's fun because all the actors come out. They say that the house lights are supposed to be completely up and each one is partially in costume, so you still know who they are, but partially they're back to being the actors who have portrayed. And for me, after being, you know, weepy in the last scene, it's a moment to kind of collect yourself. But each one of the characters tells you a little bit about what can be learned from that character's experience.

[B]

Yes. And at the end, there it is. It's a moral tale. It's not meant to be just enjoyment. Hogarth didn't mean the paintings to be just enjoyment. And I think Stravinsky doesn't really just mean for this to be. Oh, isn't this just a fun little story? You got to take something away from it. There's a moral here, and that's very 18th century, I think, of Stravinsky.

[A]

Absolutely. Well, Kathleen, I want to thank you once again for joining me on Opera for everyone.

[B]

Well, thank you. I love to do this. And it's nice to talk about a piece that's very different than anything we've done before.

[A]

Yes, yes. Everyone, see it if you can, anywhere. Streaming live. Enjoy. Stravinsky.

[C]

Good people, just a moment. From what you saw since the curtain first ascended.

[A]

Thanks for listening to this episode of Opera for Everyone.

[B]

Opera for Everyone airs every Sunday morning from 9 to 11 Mountain Time on 89.1 Khol, Jackson, Wyoming. If you missed any of today's show, you can find this EP episode and many others on the Opera for Everyone podcast.

[A]

And while you're there, please subscribe, rate and comment. You'll be helping others to find us.

[B]

Opera can be challenging, but everyone loves a good story, and a story set to music is even better.

[A]

Our mission is to make opera enjoyable for everyone because we believe opera is for everyone.

[C]

Wait you be on your.