Stravinsky The Rake's Progress
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Igor Stravinsky
Genre:
Opera
Label: DG
Magazine Review Date: 9/1999
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 134
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 459 648-2GH2
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| (The) Rake's Progress |
Igor Stravinsky, Composer
Anne Howells, Mother Goose, Mezzo soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, Baba the Turk, Mezzo soprano Bryn Terfel, Nick Shadow, Baritone Deborah York, Anne, Soprano Ian Bostridge, Tom Rakewell, Tenor Igor Stravinsky, Composer John Eliot Gardiner, Conductor Julian Clarkson, Keeper of the Madhouse, Bass London Symphony Orchestra Martin Robson, Trulove, Bass Monteverdi Choir Peter Bronder, Sellem, Tenor |
Author: Michael Oliver
There has never been a downright bad recording of The Rake’s Progress (though Esa-Pekka Salonen’s NVC video of it, 2/99, is senselessly cut), but every one of them so far has had one or more flaws of casting, so it was well worth Gardiner’s and DG’s while to bring out a new version. In all but one respect it easily withstands comparison with its five rivals, and in several it surpasses them; if you find Terfel’s Nick Shadow less worrying than I do it can be set alongside Stravinsky’s own 1964 recording as the finest available.
Gardiner is conscious throughout that this is a chamber opera, and the orchestral textures are outstandingly clean and transparent, the rhythmic pointing crisp but airy. This enables his cast to give a fast-moving, conversational account of the text, with every word crystal-clear (including those from the chorus) and no need for any voice to force. This benefits the soprano and tenor especially. Deborah York, in her first operatic recording, sounds a very young and touchingly vulnerable Anne; I began by thinking the voice a little pale, but was won over by the pathos as well as the brilliance of her Act 1 aria and moved by the desolation of her reaction to Tom’s marriage to Baba the Turk (‘I see, then: it was I who was unworthy’); her Act 3 lullaby has an affecting, child-like quality. Ian Bostridge is the best Tom Rakewell since Alexander Young in Stravinsky’s recording: he too sounds likeably youthful, sings with intelligence and sweetness of tone and acts very well. Howells is an unexaggerated Mother Goose, and von Otter’s economy of comic gesture is a marvel. ‘Finish, if you please, whatever business is detaining you with this person’ receives the full Lady Bracknell treatment from most mezzos; von Otter gives it the vocal equivalent of a nose wrinkled in well-bred disdain.
Terfel often demonstrates that he can fine his big voice down to the subtlety of the other principals, and when he does he is a formidably dangerous, insinuating Shadow. But almost as often he not only lets the voice rip but indulges in histrionics quite uncharacteristic of the performance as a whole. You may not mind: why after all should the Devil restrainedly under-act? It bothered me, though: at times he sounds bigger than the orchestra.
The other contenders, in my order of preference, are Stravinsky himself on Sony Classical (fine in all respects, despite a rather lightweight Shadow) and Kent Nagano’s Erato reading (with Dawn Upshaw, Jerry Hadley and Samuel Ramey: excellent, though Grace Bumbry’s Baba is absurdly overdone). Seiji Ozawa’s account on Philips is also admirable (Sylvia McNair and Anthony Rolfe Johnson: as good or better than Upshaw and Hadley), but ruled out by Paul Plishka’s worn and strenuous Shadow. According to your reaction to Terfel I would place Gardiner’s reading either alongside Stravinsky’s (he is a touch less mercurial than the composer but reveals even more detail; his soprano, tenor and mezzos easily rank with Stravinsky’s) or just below Nagano. In either case it has given me enormous pleasure, and I wouldn’t dream of parting with it. The recording is close but theatrically atmospheric. There are a few sound effects; the only one I minded was a distractingly raucous owl in the graveyard scene.'
Gardiner is conscious throughout that this is a chamber opera, and the orchestral textures are outstandingly clean and transparent, the rhythmic pointing crisp but airy. This enables his cast to give a fast-moving, conversational account of the text, with every word crystal-clear (including those from the chorus) and no need for any voice to force. This benefits the soprano and tenor especially. Deborah York, in her first operatic recording, sounds a very young and touchingly vulnerable Anne; I began by thinking the voice a little pale, but was won over by the pathos as well as the brilliance of her Act 1 aria and moved by the desolation of her reaction to Tom’s marriage to Baba the Turk (‘I see, then: it was I who was unworthy’); her Act 3 lullaby has an affecting, child-like quality. Ian Bostridge is the best Tom Rakewell since Alexander Young in Stravinsky’s recording: he too sounds likeably youthful, sings with intelligence and sweetness of tone and acts very well. Howells is an unexaggerated Mother Goose, and von Otter’s economy of comic gesture is a marvel. ‘Finish, if you please, whatever business is detaining you with this person’ receives the full Lady Bracknell treatment from most mezzos; von Otter gives it the vocal equivalent of a nose wrinkled in well-bred disdain.
Terfel often demonstrates that he can fine his big voice down to the subtlety of the other principals, and when he does he is a formidably dangerous, insinuating Shadow. But almost as often he not only lets the voice rip but indulges in histrionics quite uncharacteristic of the performance as a whole. You may not mind: why after all should the Devil restrainedly under-act? It bothered me, though: at times he sounds bigger than the orchestra.
The other contenders, in my order of preference, are Stravinsky himself on Sony Classical (fine in all respects, despite a rather lightweight Shadow) and Kent Nagano’s Erato reading (with Dawn Upshaw, Jerry Hadley and Samuel Ramey: excellent, though Grace Bumbry’s Baba is absurdly overdone). Seiji Ozawa’s account on Philips is also admirable (Sylvia McNair and Anthony Rolfe Johnson: as good or better than Upshaw and Hadley), but ruled out by Paul Plishka’s worn and strenuous Shadow. According to your reaction to Terfel I would place Gardiner’s reading either alongside Stravinsky’s (he is a touch less mercurial than the composer but reveals even more detail; his soprano, tenor and mezzos easily rank with Stravinsky’s) or just below Nagano. In either case it has given me enormous pleasure, and I wouldn’t dream of parting with it. The recording is close but theatrically atmospheric. There are a few sound effects; the only one I minded was a distractingly raucous owl in the graveyard scene.'
STRAVINSKY The Rake's Progress
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