In 1913 “The Rite” took inspiration from Russian folk music. Less than four decades later, the music of Stravinsky’s opera “The Rake’s Progress” looked to the classical and baroque canon instead. Stravinsky began writing the opera in 1947, when he stumbled upon a series of 18th-century William Hogarth prints at the Art Institute of Chicago. The artworks, titled “A Rake’s Progress,” depict a young man whose inherited wealth leads him to debauchery and ruin. Wanting to compose an opera in English ever since his arrival in the States in 1939, he finally found his subject.

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