THE RAKE'S PROGRESS

Premiered 20 May 1935 by Vic-Wells Ballet at Sadler's Wells Theatre, London

The better-informed tourist seeks out London's Soane Museum to enjoy Marriage a la Mode and The Rake's Progress, two great painting series by the arch-satirist William Hogarth (1697-1764), the second of which provided inspiration for this early English ballet masterwork, on which de Valois collaborated closely with Gordon and Whistler to find a coherent and stylistically effective dramatisation of Hogarth's bitter tale of the fall of a wealthy merchant's spendthrift heir, Tom Rakewell.

The ballet reduces Hogarth's original eight paintings into six scenes. The Reception introduces the nouveau riche heir Rakewell, as he distributes largesse to hangers-on, takes lessons from an egregious Dancing Master and spurns his fiancée The Betrayed Girl. Scenes two to four show Rakewell's decline and fall, through The Orgy (wine, women and song), The Virtuous Interlude (in which he is arrested for debt while The Betrayed Girl gives her savings to relieve his difficulties) and A Gaming House, where he inevitably fails to retrieve his fortunes, before (scenes five and six) sinking to The Debtor's Prison and dying, diseased and ruined, in The Madhouse.

Hogarth's narrative, with its tragically worthless hero, poignantly honest heroine and bleakly comic cast of characters, also inspired Stravinsky's 1951 opera (with distinguished libretto by W H Auden). De Valois' ballet honours Hogarth's vigorous and dramatically unflinching satire of eighteenth-century English society, while finding choreographic means to develop character and tell the story. One obvious example of this approach is The Betrayed Girl (originally danced by Markova), the only character of integrity in the ballet and therefore intentionally the only dancer en pointe. Another instance lies in the skilfully economic expression of The Rake's deterioration, from his classical poise (elegant turn-out, high elbows and exaggerated port de bras) as a wealthy gentleman at the outset, descending by degrees to the animalistic wildness of his final appearance in The Madhouse.

The ballet has been an English repertoire standard since its successful 1935 premiere, and was warmly received in America (1949), where, despite its accessible dramatic energy, it is less frequently seen.

©Tim Tubbs