Directors
Humphrey Burton
David Heather

Sets
David Hockney

Performers
Felicity Lott
Leo Goeke
Samuel Ramey
Rosalind Elias
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Bernard Haitink (conductor)

In 1735 William Hogarth created his series of satirical etchings The Rake's Progress. The series was influenced in part by the literary work of his acerbic contemporary, Jonathan Swift. In that pre-photography time, inexpensive prints had a similar appeal and popularity to the satirical TV programmes of recent decades, and then, as now, the public appetite was for the lurid, the theatrical, the violent. The Rake's Progress appealed to that taste, telling a morality tale that cautions of the outcome of a dissolute life, while also portraying such a life in graphic terms. (Modern tabloids play the same trick, their outraged headlines promising you the disgusting revelations in full photographic detail inside.)

In 1951 Igor Stravinsky, inspired by the Hogarth prints, created his opera of the same title in a neoclassical form, drawing on the model of Mozart. The poetic libretto by WH Auden and Chester Kallman is a fable, tracking the descent of Tom Rakewell, under the influence of the Mephistophelean Nick Shadow. When Tom comes into an unexpected inheritance (offered as a lure by Shadow) he strays from the path of true love (his sweetheart, Ann Trulove) and righteous work, into a life of gambling, whoring, investment shenanigans, and an exceedingly strange marriage to a bearded lady. The redemptive power of love saves Tom from hellfire, but Shadow curses him with madness and he ends up in the madhouse.

David Hockney's witty sets, first seen at Glyndebourne's 1975 production, drew inspiration from Hogarth's cross-hatched prints too. They proved so popular they were reused for Glyndebourne's subsequent production - the performance seen here. Felicity Lott is in sparkling form, as ever, with great support from Leo Goeke and Sam Ramey.