Sunday 12 March at 20, on the podium of the Sala Mehta, Maestro Daniele Gatti at the head of the Choir and the Orchestra del Maggio for the première of “The Rake’s Progress” by Igor Stravinsky; directed by Frederic Wake-Walker

In the cast Matthew Swensen, Sara Blanch, Vito Priante, Adriana di Paola and Marie-Claude Chappuis in the main roles

The first performance will be broadcast live on Rai-Radio3

Discounts and promotions on three performances

Florence, March 9, 2023 – On Sunday, March 12 2023, at 8 pm, the principal conductor Daniele Gatti, leading the Choir and Orchestra del Maggio, on the podium of the Sala Mehta for the first performance of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress penultimate opera title of the Maggio Carnival Festival. The direction is entrusted to Frederic Wake-Walker who returns to the Maggio after Roméo et Juliette staged during the last 84th Festival of the Maggio.
Four other performances on the bill: 14 and 16 March, again at 8 pm, and 19 and 26 March at 3.30 pm.

On stage Matthew Swensen as the protagonist Tom Rakewell; Sara Blanch as Anne Trulove, his betrothed; Vito Priante is Nick Shadow; the role of Baba la Turca is played by Adriana di Paola. The character of Mother Goose has the voice of Marie-Claude Chappuis; Anne’s father, Father Trulove, is played by James Platt; Christian Collia plays the role of the auctioneer Sellem and Matteo Torcaso, a talent from the Accademia del Maggio, plays the Guardian of the asylum. The cast ends with four soloists from the Coro del Maggio: Giovanni Mazzei, Constanza Antunica, Antonia Fino and Nadia Pirazzini.

In this new staging, the scenes and costumes are entrusted to Anne Jones; the lights to Charlotte Burton and the video department to Ergo Phizmiz.
The choir master of the Maggio is Lorenzo Fratini.

Thanks to the CR Firenze Foundation, the performance on 03/16/2023 is offered to the public with a 50% discount on tickets in each sector.

The Teatro del Maggio, on the occasion of Women’s Day, offers all women, starting from 8 March, the opportunity to purchase tickets for the performances on 14 (20) and 26 March (15.30) at a discounted price 50% off the purchase of one or two tickets, by going to the Maggio Ticket Office or using the discount code RAKEPROG803FESTDON on the Foundation’s website (maggiofiorentino.com).

The performance of 12 March 2023 will be broadcast live on Rai Radio 3

Furthermore, before each performance, the presentations to the public of the shows held by Katiuscia Manetta, Maddalena Bonechi and Marco Cosci continue: the guides are held in the Foyer of the Sala Zubin Mehta and in the Gallery Foyer of the Sala Grande about 45 minutes before the start of the show.

More than forty years after its last Florentine performance, The Rake’s Progress returns, in a new staging designed by Frederic Wake-Walker and conducted by the principal conductor Daniele Gatti. The opera, which saw its first performance in Florence in June 1968 conducted by Heinrich Hollreiser and directed by Günther Rennert, is being staged in May for the fourth time. After the debut there were two other filmings: in 1972 directed by Ettore Gracis and directed by Virginio Puecher and in May 1982 directed by Riccardo Chailly in the historic staging by Ken Russel. The Rake’s Progress was composed by Igor Stravinsky following his move to the United States, inspired by a series of etchings by William Hogarth depicting the rise and fall of Tom Rakewell, a spendthrift who squanders his wealth and ends his days in an asylum .

The libretto was written by the British poet Wystan Hugh Auden, who will also be joined by Chester Kallmann and, as underlined by the maestro Daniele Gatti, intertwines perfectly with the main theme at which the Carnival Festival is aimed: “The myth of Faust, to which the Carnival Festival is dedicated, also clearly returns in the plot of Rake’s Progress which we can define as a modern version of “Doctor Faust”: also in this case we find the figure of the tempting devil, ’embodied’ by the character Nick Shadow, which offers the protagonist an extraordinary and overwhelming change of life but at a very dear price: the soul. With Stravinsky’s work we are therefore perfectly in line with the subject of the Festival, which has recently seen the performance of another rarely performed work such as Ferruccio Busoni’s Doctor Faust”. The maestro then continued with his analysis, also highlighting the importance of the program for the concert on March 10 that he directed and which precedes the première of Rake’s Progress by two days, compositions selected to have a double bond with Stravinsky’s work: “Speaking of Stravinsky’s production, the longest period we can notice is the so-called neoclassical one which covers almost thirty years, from the early 1920s to the early 1950s. Pulchinella, which closes the concert on 10 March, belongs to the first compositions that mark this part of his work, while Rake’s Progress instead marks the end of the neoclassical phase of Stravinsky’s works, ideally ending a musical journey. I find it really interesting to ‘anticipate’ the Rake’s with a concert that matches perfectly and is strongly focused on aesthetics, also with Vivaldi’s Concerto grosso in D minor and Bach’s Jauchzet Gott Landen in the program, ‘teasing’ the audience with a small but intriguing musical journey of two evenings through a crucial musical period in Stravinsky’s life”.

Frederic Wake-Walker, in his third production at the Maggio after the performances of Adriana Lecouvreur in may 2021 and the recent Roméo et Juliette, second title of the last 84th Maggio Festival, is directing The Rake’s Progress. Wake-Walker and his team wanted to give great importance to the visual aspect of the work, precisely considering the visual and unwritten source exploited by Stravinsky: “From my point of view the evolution of the protagonist, Tom, is a real and his own journey of detachment: Tom Rakewell disconnects from nature, from love and also from himself; at the end of the work he will really have lost everything. The work is tragic, developing behind the story of this young man and his downfall, but it is also incredibly funny and enjoyable, as if it were a strange and beautiful fusion of tragedy and comedy. Stravinsky and Auden, the author of the libretto, lived in California when they wrote the work: one of the main themes is the critique of American capitalism after the end of the war. This is why I think that from the point of view of a current director it is important to reflect this critique of the capitalism of the times in which we live. Today this work really has a strong meaning: it is a story of disconnection. I believe that our capitalist system, especially with technology, has disconnected us from ourselves and from nature. This production therefore wants to criticize these elements of our lives individually. The scenography uses a large amount of screens: it begins in a natural and very naïve environment which represents the countryside and the world of Anne and her father Trulove. As we ‘go’ to London the environment becomes more digital and artificial: it not only represents an immoral and corrupt city, but also this ‘disconnected’ digital world in which we now live. So we tried to get inspired by visual elements from the eighteenth century, from the twentieth century and also from the contemporary world, blending them together, just like Stravinsky did with music.”

On the stage, in the role of the protagonist Tom Rakewell, Matthew Swensen, who returns to Maggio shortly after last spring’s concert held under the direction of Sir Mark Elder and a little over a year after Falstaff in November 2021 under the direction of John Eliot Gardiner directed by Sven-Eric Bechtolf triumphantly received by audiences and critics. Speaking of his character, and of the path towards perdition and detachment through which his story develops, Swensen said he was struck by how, especially in today’s world, so many people can find themselves in Tom: “I think that in one way or another ‘other everyone can, in part, identify with the character of Tom and the situation through which he passes: he initially wants money, then to be happy and to be able to change the world by inventing an improbable machine that transforms stones into bread making it famous; only to realize, finally, the superficiality of all his desires. Only at the last moment, when it’s too late, does he realize that what he really wanted was to be with Anne, in their home, in peace, wanting nothing more than that. I think that, with the necessary differences, everyone can somehow ‘find themselves’ in Tom’s experiences.”

At his side, in the role of his betrothed, Anne Trulove, Sara Blanch: after the successes in Lo sposo di tre, e marito di nessuna staged in January 2022 and of Orphée et Euridice, the inaugural title of the 84th Festival of Maggio again conducted by maestro Daniele Gatti, he therefore returns to the stage of the Sala Mehta. “It is truly a great pleasure to be able to return here to the Teatro del Maggio, and to do so with such an interesting work as The Rake’s Progress and with a splendid cast – said Sara Blanch – Anne is a character who, during the course of the plot, faces situations , mainly related to love, really unpleasant. Despite this, she manages to maintain a balance and not lose herself, keeping her light and even managing to pass it on to Tom. Anne has always had an idea of naturalness, of contact with nature and the ‘good’ part of life, a detail that we also find perfectly in her musical parts and in her phrasing”.

Vito Priante plays the diabolical Nick Shadow who, putting himself at the service of the protagonist Tom, will finally guide him towards the void of perdition. About his role, the Artist says: “My character, the diabolical Nick Shadow, is a real shadow, as his surname already suggests: in fact, he weaves the plot of his true objective precisely ‘in the dark’, behind the back of the protagonist Tom Rakewell, which is placed at the service, actually aiming to take the soul. From a certain point of view, analyzing the essence of the role, we can say that Nick Shadow is immediately ‘already part’ of the protagonist of Rake’s Progress: almost a way of implying that a darker part is actually hidden inside everyone of us, manifesting itself or not depending on the occasion. Occasions which, in the plot, are maliciously exploited by my character to divert Tom from the rosy and peaceful perspective of life that seems to await him at the beginning of the work; and it is by exploiting Rakewell’s ambition, promising him easy success, women and above all fame and wealth, that Nick will be able to put him on the road to detachment and almost complete ruin”. Priante made his debut at the Maggio over twenty years ago, in December 2001, in Death in Venice by Benjamin Britten conducted by Bruno Bartoletti and directed by Pier Luigi Pizzi and recently starred, in February 2018, in La favorite by Gaetano Donizetti, staged under the direction of Fabio Luisi and directed by Ariel Garcia-Valdès.

The ambiguous character of Baba the Turk, the bearded woman whom Tom, once he arrives in London, will even end up marrying on Nick’s advice, is played by Adriana di Paola, who returns to Maggio after her debut in March 2015 in Dido and Æneas by Henry Purcell directed by Stefano Montanari and directed by Marina Bianchi.

Marie-Claude Chappuis, who plays Mother Goose, the owner of the brothel, another place on the road to Tom’s perdition, also returns to May a few months after last April’s concert conducted by Sir Mark Elder.

James Platt, in his debut on the stage of the Teatro del Maggio, plays the father of the girlfriend of the libertine Tom, or rather Father Trulove; Christian Collia, like Matthew Swensen, also one of the protagonists of Falstaff staged in November 2021, plays the role of Sellem, the auctioneer and Matteo Torcaso, a talent from the Accademia del Maggio, plays the Guardian of the asylum where, finally, he will end up Tom Rakwell.

The cast is completed by four soloists of the Maggio Choir: Giovanni Mazzei, Constanza Antunica, Antonia Fino and Nadia Pirazzini.

The opera:

After moving to the United States in 1939, Igor Stravinsky toyed with the idea of writing an opera in English. The project took shape only after a few years when in 1947 the composer was struck by the cycle of canvases by William Hogarth exhibited at the Chicago Art Institute, which described the rise and fall of Tom Rakewell, a spendthrift who senselessly squanders his his days in the asylum. Stravinsky immediately thought of making it an opera and turned to the British poet Wystan Hugh Auden for the drafting of the libretto, who will also be joined by Chester Kallmann. In March 1948 the libretto was ready, while Stravinsky took more time for the music, completing the score only three years later. The Rake’s Progress premiered at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice on 11 September 1951 with the author himself on the podium for the world premiere. Organized in arias, recitatives, choruses and ensemble pieces in line with the eighteenth-century theatrical scheme, the work shows a decidedly retrospective character and represents the last stage of Stravinsky’s ‘neoclassical’ period. And if the declared reference model is the theater of Mozart and Da Ponte – in particular the Così fan tutte – in the Rake’s Progress there are numerous quotations and references to different eras and authors, underlining once again Stravinsky’s ability to assimilate in a organic every element of the musical tradition.