The tenor Paul Appleby (who has also sung the role at the Metropolitan Opera) embodied both Toms eagerness and his blankness, singing with a fresh and sweet lyric tenor that easily projected in the large, mostly outdoor theater. But he was poorly supported by the Orchestre de Paris, conducted by Eivind Gullberg Jensen, whose muddy and imprecise performance, particularly in the first act, failed to complement Mr. Applebys rhythmic energy. (Mr. Jensen was a late replacement for the injured Daniel Harding.)
Toms adventures in London society, more Dionysus than Dickens, get a flashy modern gloss here. With projections and a group of actors, including more tearing through walls, Mr. McBurney creates vivid vignettes of clubs, skyscrapers, a brothel (including the amusing Hilary Summers as madam Mother Goose), a stock market crash and Toms medley of sexual partners (both women and men). The irony and sharp edges of Stravinskys score, as well as the humor of the madcap staging, keep us at a distance from the action, able to witness Toms downfall with a cool, critical eye.
But the soprano Julia Bullock, as Anne, gave the proceedings a beating heart. Though her voice was sometimes lost in the large theater and her high notes sometimes squeezed, Ms. Bullock made her saintly character sincere without being cloying. She was at her best in the haunting final scene, when her slim, nuanced soprano had a simple honesty.
At the insistence of Nick, Tom marries a local freak of nature, the bearded lady Baba the Turk, whose only asset is her fame. (The projections imply that Tom essentially does it for the Instagram possibilities.) The role of a hectoring sideshow attraction is not the operas most ingratiating element, but this production puts a twist on it. Though written for a mezzo-soprano, here the role is performed by the countertenor Andrew Watts in the spirit of Conchita Wurst or a RuPauls Drag Race runner-up, a funny and appropriately campy choice. (Mr. Watts, though, struggled with the roles large range.)
Mr. McBurneys targets may be on the obvious side, but the staging succeeds through its visual wit and sudden swerves into pathos. When Tom sits in front of his bed and sings I wish I were happy, the music is chilly and austere, and the white box surrounding Mr. Appleby seems to offer no comfort at all. As the auctioneer Sellem, the bald and spectacled Alan Oke bore some resemblance to Stravinsky, dispassionately selling off the 18th-century artifacts of Tom and Babas house or relics from the warehouse of music past.
Despite its humor, everything in this production leads to death and loss. As Nick pushes Tom ever further down the path of debauchery, and eventually penury, the tears in the paper walls multiply. By the third acts Don Giovanni-like graveyard scene, in which Tom plays a card game for his soul, the walls are scarred from his ordeals, implying both psychic damage and hard-won experience.
His voice underlined by a creepy harpsichord, Tom wins his soul, but Nick takes his mind. The final scene, in which Tom wanders through Bedlam, is acted with haunting economy by Mr. Appleby on a scarred, bare stage.
The epilogue echoes Don Giovanni as well: The whole cast reminds the audience of their storys moral, and warns against idle hands and hearts and minds. In other words, get off Twitter.
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Review: A 'Rake's Progress' for a Fame-Hungry Internet Age - New York Times