The Rake's Progress
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The Rake's Progress is an English-language opera from 1951 in three acts and an epilogue by Igor Stravinsky. The libretto, written by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, is based loosely on the eight paintings and engravings A Rake's Progress (1733–1735) of William Hogarth, which Stravinsky had seen on 2 May 1947, in a Chicago exhibition.
The composer
Hogarth's third painting, showing Tom experiencing a brothel in London
Tom in Bedlam, comforted only by Sarah Young (Anne in the opera) – the last of Hogarth's paintings.
Igor Stravinsky
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Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship and United States citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century and a pivotal figure in modernist music.
Stravinsky in the early 1920s
The Stravinsky house in Ustilug, modern-day Ukraine
Sergei Diaghilev in a 1906 painting by Léon Bakst
Opening measures of the "Sacrificial Dance", showing the odd metres and chords