A passionate and tortured couple whose love story will turn into tragedy. This is the story of Tom Rakewell and Anne Trulove, the heroes of The Rake’s Progress, an opera written by Igor Stravinsky between 1948 and 1951. Everything changes when Tom Rakewell touches an unexpected inheritance that he will squander in a tumultuous life made up of alcohol, brothels and gambling. His bride, too in love, will suffer and sink with him.
This is the first time that the director Mathieu Bauer, also director of the Nouveau Théâtre de Montreuil, has conducted an opera, which he has transposed to the London of the 1950s. To be discovered at the Opéra de Rennes from 3 to 9 March, then at the Opéra de Nantes from March 22 to 30.
Soloist Elsa Benoit performs Anne Trulove. A strong role of a woman in love ready for anything. “Anne is a young woman who has an ideal of love and who is completely dedicated to the man she loves and whom she has chosen, says Elsa Benoit. She will follow him to hell. It’s an unconditional love that will push her to do things she never thought she could do.”.
A role that also allows the singer to return to Brittany. The native of Concarneau is not in unknown territory here. After 12 years of career on the stages of Europe, she returns home. “I started at the Opéra de Rennes in the choirs at the age of 18, she remembers. I also spent two years in Rennes as a student, so there are a lot of things that come back. I feel like I’m with family, it’s nice.”
This is the first time that director Mathieu Bauer has conducted an opera. A challenge and a great project. “It is a very generous and complex opera, he said. There are plenty of scenes, adventures, you have to be attentive to everything.”
The libretto of Stravinsky’s version of The Rake’s Progress is signed by the famous British-American poet and playwright WH Auden who was inspired, like other artists, by a series of eight paintings (also called The Rake’s Progress) by the 18th-century English painter and printmaker William Hogarth. He tells in eight scenes the fictional story of Tom Rakewell, of his destiny as a young heir caught in the whirlwind of a life of debauchery before ending his days in an asylum.
Igor Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress – Rennes Opera from March 3 to 9, 2022 – Place de la Mairie 35000 Rennes – Ticket office: 02 23 62 28 28 – Prices: from 5 to 60 euros