Anyone fondly imagining that Birmingham's Igorfest - the four-year survey of the complete works of Igor Stravinsky - might include a Graham Vick Birmingham City Opera production of The Rake's Progress would have been gutted. What the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Chorus presented here was only a concert performance. Nevertheless, conductor Jac van Steen delivered a punchy enough account of the score to dispel most misgivings. He was helped by some strong casting. Edward Lyon's Tom Rakewell did not initially seem full-bodied enough for the expanses of Symphony Hall, but his clear tenor highlighted subtleties of Auden's libretto and Stravinsky's setting, sometimes lost in the opera house. The partnership with Claire Booth's gorgeously sung Anne Truelove, creamy of tone and with an instrumental agility at the top of her range, meant their portrayal of the forces of good was credibly opposed to the essential evil of Nick Shadow. James Rutherford's Nick carried massive power, though lacking truly satanic blackness. With lights dimmed for the graveyard scene and the fateful game of cards, Lyon and Rutherford were able to create exactly the dramatic tension that made of Tom's consigment to the madhouse a tragic ending in the best Italian tradition.

Losing all the zany colour of Mother Goose's brothel and Sellem's auction, not to mention Tom's crazy bread machine, was a high price to pay. Nevertheless, with Susan Bickley doubling as the voluptuous madam and the bearded Baba the Turk, enough remained of the Hogarth characters that inspired Stravinsky for this morality tale to retain its bite.