Tom Service [The Guardian, 12 June 2006]
Neil Bartlett’s new production of Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress is an effervescent curtain-raiser to this year’s Aldeburgh festival. It’s the first time Bartlett has directed an opera. But with a cast of young soloists – all graduates of Aldeburgh’s Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme – and the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Martyn Brabbins, this is a staging full of wit, energy and expressive intensity.