The Rake’s Progress

Festival Finale Featuring a Milestone of Modern Music Theatre

Barbara Hannigan is not only one of the world’s best sopranos; she is also a brilliant conductor, as the Elbphilharmonie audience already had the chance to find out. With Igor Stravinsky’s »The Rake’s Progress« she now conducts an opera for the first time – and her choice is no coincidence: this is also the first opera she sang in on stage. It tells the story of the downfall of anti-hero Tom Rakewell, who leads a dissolute life after his father’s death and squanders his inheritance in brothels and gambling dens. Packed with enigmatic characters and numerous references to music history, Stravinsky’s opera is a milestone of modern music theatre, which close companions Hannigan and the orchestra Ludwig perform at the closing concert of the Hamburg International Music Festival together with hand-picked young professional artists from her mentoring programme Equilibrium.