Michael Tanner

Sublime Stravinsky

The Rake’s Progress; Il signor Bruschino <br /> Peacock Theatre

issue 12 September 2009

The Rake’s Progress; Il signor Bruschino
Peacock Theatre

Just before the opera season gets under way each year, British Youth Opera puts on a couple of operas, or this year three, with three performances each, at the newly comfortable Peacock Theatre, off Kingsway. Few people go, since BYO treats the enterprise as a jealously guarded secret, and makes sure that you need detective skills to discover what and when, and never tells you, even if you’re as well disposed a critic as I am.

This year the show which is really outstanding is their production of Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, at least the equal of any that I have seen of this problematic work, and in some respects superior.

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