Stravinsky: The Rake's Progress
This is the original postmodern opera: Igor  Stravinsky, in an unlikely collaboration with W.H. Auden,  resurrected the centuries-old formulas of opera buffa and  delivered a parodistic commentary on them at the same time.  Composed in 1951, and based on William Hogarth's satirical  engravingsA Rake's Progress(published in 1735),  this virtuosic three-act comedy is one of the indisputable  masterpieces of 20th-century opera, a fresh and unique  fusion of familiar musical, theatrical, and scenic elements  with a wild libretto and a vivacious score in Stravinsky's  most scintillating neoclassical idiom. Recorded in London  in 1964--with the composer conducting the Royal  Philharmonic Orchestra and the chorus of Sadler's Wells (he  was then 82)--this account remains the standard by which  others must be judged. The performance is vital and  wickedly dry, with first-class singing from a cast that  includes Judith Raskin as Anne Truelove and John Reardon as  Nick Shadow.--Ted Libbey