Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress: I Walk the Line

Aria Code

WQXR & The Metropolitan Opera

Music Interviews, Music Commentary, Aria, Music, Arts, Metropolitan, Performing Arts, Code, Wqxr, Opera, Wnyc, Studios

4.8 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 5 May 2021

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Almost three hundred years ago, the English artist William Hogarth created a series of paintings called A Rake’s Progress, which tell the tragic story of a man whose life spirals out of control after inheriting an unexpected fortune. He leaves behind a fiancée, and it is her story of devotion that reverberates through Igor Stravinsky’s opera The Rake’s Progress and the aria “No Word from Tom.”

In this episode, you’ll visit with Hogarth’s paintings, hear how Stravinsky captured the undying loyalty of the forgotten lover and get an inside look at how unexpected fortune and fame upended the family of Vivian Liberto and Johnny Cash. Yes, that Johnny Cash. And, yes, in this podcast about Igor Stravinsky.

And here’s the best part: the incomparable Dawn Upshaw will sing it for you from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera.

The Guests:

Soprano Dawn Upshaw has performed The Rake’s Progress many times and says that some of her happiest moments on an opera stage were when she was singing the role of the devoted fiancée, Anne Trulove.

Tara Cash is the youngest daughter of Johnny Cash and his first wife, Vivian Liberto. When she was growing up, everyone always wanted to hear about her father’s life. Now, she welcomes the opportunity to share her mother’s side of the story.

Joanna Tinworth is Curator (Collections) at Sir John Soane’s Museum in London, where the original paintings, A Rake’s Progress by William Hogarth, have resided for over 200 years. Hogarth’s paintings are among the museum’s most popular exhibits.

Michael Bragg is the Music Planning Associate and Librarian at San Francisco Opera. He gives lectures and talks about opera around the Bay area, and he loves Stravinsky because of the composer’s unique approach to blending old and new styles of music.

Below is the first painting in Hogarth's series A Rake's Progress, entitled "The Heir." You can see the complete set of paintings here, courtesy of Sir John Soane's Museum.

William Hogarth, "The Heir," from "A Rake's Progress" series, the inspiration for Stravinsky's opera. (Photo: Sir John Soane's Museum, London)

Transcript

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0:00.0	He was disappearing really and my mother was still incredibly devoted to him.
0:10.0	I could see it in her eyes. I could hear it in her voice.
0:14.0	From WQXR in the Metropolitan Opera, this is Ariacode. I'm Rianning Giddens.
0:20.0	Should I do this? Do I go back to my true love? Or do I go and drink and smoke and party and do all of the things that sound so much like fun?
0:28.0	Every episode we listen closely to a single Aria so we can hear how it still resonates in our lives.
0:35.0	Today it's no word from Tom from the Riggs Progress by Igor Stravinsky.
0:40.0	She's almost presented as an angel of mercy, coming to relieve him from the complete pickle he's got himself into.
1:03.0	You know from listening to our show that opera can tell us who we are.
1:07.0	If you can look past the powdered wigs and the hoop skirts, but in today's episode you don't even have to work that hard because this opera was written yesterday. More or less.
1:18.0	1951. That's when the Riggs Progress by Igor Stravinsky premiered in Venice.
1:23.0	Now the opera is based on a series of 18th century paintings by William Hogarth and it tells the tragic story of Tom Rakewell.
1:32.0	Tom has just inherited an unexpected fortune and he goes to London to claim it.
1:37.0	But instead of coming back to his fiancé, he disappears into a life of debauchery, loses all his money, marries another woman, and ends up in an insane asylum.
1:49.0	In the paintings the story is all about Tom, but in the opera you also get to know the woman he abandons. Her name says it all.
1:58.0	And true love is not about to give up on her Tom.
2:04.0	Standing by your man, even as he gets into all sorts of mischief and leaves you, well that's complicated.
2:11.0	An opera, yeah, but even more in real life.
2:14.0	Take the story of Vivian Leverto. She met a man in 1951, the exact same year the opera premiered by the way, on a roller rink in San Antonio, Texas.
2:24.0	They fell in love and got married, but soon her new husband became famous and eventually all kinds of unreliable. His name, Johnny Cash.
2:35.0	Their love story has some uncanny parallels to Stravinsky's opera and our four guests today will guide us through it all.
2:43.0	First, soprano Don Upshaw, who performed the role of Andrew Love many times during her career. Some of my happiest moments on an opera stage were singing this role.
2:56.0	So, you know, I adore the music how it lives in my body actually as I'm singing.
	...

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