OPERA
Slideshow
Credits
- Opera in Three Acts by Igor Stravinsky
libretto by W.H. Auden and Chestern Kallman - Coproduction with Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie (Brussels, Belgium)
Opéra de Lyon (France)
San Francisco Opera (US)
Royal Opera House (London, UK)
Teatro Real (Madrid, Spain) - Design and Production
Ex Machina - Director
Robert Lepage - Assistant Director
Neilson Vignola and Sybille Wilson - Set Designer
Carl Fillion - Costume Designer
François Barbeau - Choreographer
Michael Keegan-Dolan - Lighting
Etienne Boucher - Video
Boris Firquet - Properties Designer
Patricia Ruel - Make-up Artist
Catherine Friedland (Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie) - Assistant Choreographer
Rachel Poirier - Assistant Costume Designers
Valérie Lévesque and Virginie Leclerc - Choreographic Research
Anne Barry - Workshop Performers
Arielle Warnke St-Pierre
Rosalie Trudel
Elinor Fueter
Tom Casey
Dominic Caron
Christophe Garcia - Properties Research
Ronald Fauteux - Make-up Research
Sylvie Rolland Provost - Set Construction
Scène Éthique (Varennes) - Costume Production
Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie (Brussels) - Inflatable camper
Airbulle (Montreal) - Technical Director
Michel Gosselin
assisted David-Alexandre Chabot - Technicians in Quebec
Patrick Durnin (Technical Director)
Chloé Blanchet
François Bélanger
Frédérick Gasse
Maxime Gosselin
Richard Laroque
Sylvain Beaulieu
Daniel Bernatchez - Production Manager
Bernard Gilbert - Production Assistant
Viviane Paradis
The Rake's Progress
The 18th century engravings of William Hogarth inspired Stravinsky’s cyclothymic opera with its surrealistic tone, while Ex Machina’s version is more reminiscent of America in the 1950s.
The curtain rises on Ann Trulove and Tom Rakewell teasing each other in a field near an oil derrick. A panoramic screen shows a Texan landscape in the distance where more derricks are pumping out the wealth of the Truloves. When Tom exclaims, “I wish I had money!” Nick Shadow emerges from the derrick to inform Tom that an unknown uncle has left him a fortune. One by one, the various techniques Shadow will use to win Tom’s soul emerge from below, including a film studio, a blow-up camper, a car, a swimming pool and a graveyard.
Quickly disillusioned with his new life, Tom plunges into alcohol and drugs. He impulsively marries Baba the Turk, the bearded lady, on their opening night. A little later, at the end of his patience, he drowns his wife in their swimming pool. In a last attempt to salvage his dignity, he invests in television, the latest technological invention that is going to feed the masses, but loses everything in this noble project. At an auction of his belongings, Baba is resurrected, and tells Ann that Tom still loves her.
Tom and Nick settle their accounts in the neon sign graveyard in Las Vegas, where Rakewell finally realizes he’s been dealing with the Devil. Tom wins the card game, but before Shadow descends to Hell he inflicts Tom with insanity. Tom believes he is Adonis, and surrounded by his fellow lunatics at the asylum, he meets Ann, his Venus, for the last time. As fragments of his life parade across the common room TV screen, alternating with live close-ups, his meteoric career reaches its moving finale.
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