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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