The Rake’s Progress

opera by Stravinsky

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July 13, 2026

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The Rake's Progress is an opera by Igor Stravinsky, with a libretto by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman. It premiered in 1951 and is based on a series of engravings by William Hogarth from 1735. The opera tells the story of a young man who descends into a life of recklessness and moral decline. Stravinsky's work is considered a neoclassical opera, drawing inspiration from earlier operatic traditions while maintaining his distinctive musical style.123

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Igor Stravinsky
Life and career
…on his only full-length opera, The Rake’s Progress, a Neoclassical work (with a libretto by W.H. Auden and the American writer Chester Kallman) based on a series of moralistic engravings by the 18th-century English artist William Hogarth. The Rake’s Progress is a mock-serious pastiche of late 18th-century grand opera but…
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…on his only full-length opera, The Rake’s Progress, a Neoclassical work (with a libretto by W.H. Auden and the American writer Chester Kallman) based on a series of moralistic engravings by the 18th-century English artist William Hogarth. The Rake’s Progress is a mock-serious pastiche of late 18th-century grand opera but…
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opera
Russian opera
…Stravinsky’s full-length opera in English, The Rake’s Progress (1951; libretto by the poets W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman, after William Hogarth’s engravings), a neoclassical austere and compassionate work.
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…Stravinsky’s full-length opera in English, The Rake’s Progress (1951; libretto by the poets W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman, after William Hogarth’s engravings), a neoclassical austere and compassionate work.
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Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
…Anne Trulove in Igor Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress (1951). She is especially associated with the roles of Zerbinetta in Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, which she first portrayed in 1941, and the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier. Schwarzkopf sang lieder in her American debut in New York City in October 1953,…
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…Anne Trulove in Igor Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress (1951). She is especially associated with the roles of Zerbinetta in Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, which she first portrayed in 1941, and the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier. Schwarzkopf sang lieder in her American debut in New York City in October 1953,…
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