Wolf Trap Opera Company, which can be counted on to enliven our summers with great repertoire, imaginative productions and promising young singers, unveils a new staging of the Stravinsky gem this weekend.

"The Rake's Progress" is a remarkably complex piece. Although the neoclassical music falls easily on the ears, there are intricate layers in the score, which has one foot in the 18th century, the other in contemporary times.

Same for the libretto, fashioned in extraordinarily rich poetic language by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman.

The story, inspired by William Hogarth's series of prints, "A Rake's Progress," the plot presents an allegory that has hardly lost its relevance or sting.

The would-be hero, Tom Rakewell, abandons his love and the kinder, gentler world of country life for the amoral enticements of the wicked city.

The director of the Wolf Trap production, Tara Faircloth, has written Tom "struggles to find meaning and purpose in a world that simply does not make sense anymore."

Who can't identify with that, especially these days?

The cast includes Corinne Winters (upper left) as Tom's aptly named sweetheart, Anne Trulove; Eric Barry (upper right) as Tom; Craig Colclough (middle left) as Nick Shadow, the Mephistophelian protagonist in this tale; and Margaret Gawrysiak (middle right) as Baba the Turk, the bearded lady who plays a curious role in Tom's descent.

Aaron Sorensen (lower left) as Father Trulove and James Kryshak (lower right) as Sellem the auctioneer are also in the cast. 

Dean Williamson will conduct. The stage designer is Erhard Rom, who has a quite a track record for ...

providing Wolf Trap Opera with visual stimulation (last month's high-tech, lots-of-flesh "Don Giovanni" reconfirmed that heartily).

Performances are Friday, Sunday and Aug. 11 in the Barns at Wolf Trap.

Here's a taste of the "The Rake's Progress," the opening scene from a 1990s Salzburg Festival production starring the great team of Dawn Upshaw and the late Jerry Hadley:

PHOTOS COURTESY OF WOLF TRAP OPERA