As I walked into the rehearsal space at the Stephen Hawking Building yesterday, I was immediately struck by both the quality and the size of the ensemble on show. Being unfamiliar (perhaps to my shame, as a music student) with Stravinsky’s opera-based-on-a-series-of-paintings The Rake’s Progress, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I spoke to the director, William Ashford, about what those uninitiated to the world of opera should be looking out for on opening night.

“Something very different,” he suggested. “They’re not going to get the traditional, kind of, sit-down-and-appreciate-the-music setup; I’ve deliberately tried to destroy any sense of snobbery or inaccessibility. I fall asleep in opera all the bloody time: if I watch this, I want to be kept awake, so you know, I’ve got lots of gags in there – like the painting, you’ve got to look at every place – without being distracting, obviously.”

"I’ve deliberately tried to destroy any sense of snobbery or inaccessibility"

Ashford is energetic and passionate, and it is clear from the focus of his performers that they are too. “It’s doing away with pretentiousness, the ‘I’ve-seen-this-at-the-Royal-Opera-Society’; well, so bloody what? I don’t really like that, so I wanted to make it a piece of theatre."

On why he chose to stage such a challenging work, he responded, “I chose it in that it’s unusual – it’s operatic. He’s completely broken from his predecessors, he’s gone right back, he hasn’t gone back to Wagner or anything like that.” Ashford is passionate that this is much more than a ‘Student Opera’ : “It’s a lot like the Hogarth paintings on which it’s based,” he said. “It’s all driven from character, and stylized, a lot like the music I suppose. It’s not pastiche, but it’s alluding to that – making it huge.”

"it’s all driven from character, and stylized, a lot like the music"

And huge is what it’s shaping up to be – Stravinsky’s music combined with a grungy, punk aesthetic might not seem like an obvious choice at first, but Ashford explained why he has chosen this look: “I set it in the 80s because, like the Hogarth, it’s violent and full of wit, and it’s dirty – the punk aesthetic uses a lot of old, British symbols, like the Sex Pistols – taking the image of the Queen, ripping a hole in it and putting piercings on. One, to kind of excite audiences – and there’s a lot of debate about how you should set opera, whether it should be modernized – but I think, actually, for a young audience, people enjoy that. It’s different, and it’s exciting in that sense. Costume wise, we’ve got brilliant costume designers, Alice Brightman and Agnes Cameron, and they have been brilliant at capturing the transformation throughout the opera.”

Review from a 2011 performance of The Rake’s Progress

Is it a visual treat as well, then? “Certainly,” said Ashford. “My producer hates me, because the props list is huge. I mean there’s so many gags, just so much stuff needs to happen on stage. The costumes I want, it’s almost as if they’re growing pustules, tumours – transforming into disgusting animals. A lot of the physicality we’ve done is stylized, it switches between really hyper-stylized and realistic – and we find this grotesque, in-between-ness.”

'The Rake’s Progress' runs from 23rd to 25th February, in West Road Concert Hall.