In Victorian Opera’s production, John Bell finds out who’s after your soul these days.

“For idle hearts, and hands, and minds, the Devil finds a work to do”, goes the age-old saying, as sung by the cast of The Rake’s Progress at the end of Stravinsky’s darkly comic morality tale.

The devil has many disguises. Just who, or what, is it in today’s world of instant gratification and material excess? In the opera, he takes the human form of Nick Shadow, a Faustian figure who turns the wholesome Tom Rakewell into a man of abundant wealth before leading him down the path of debauchery and ruin.

John Bell, director of Victorian Opera’s production, chose not to stage The Rake’s Progress in its original 18th-century setting. “I shied away from that,” he says. “I thought, ‘Let’s try to see who the devil is today; what are today’s vices and corruptions and who is the devil amongst us?’”

Bell’s idea of Nick Shadow – the devil disguised in a loud chequered suit – embodies that other age-old maxim: never trust a salesman. “He’s a bit of a charlatan, a kind of exaggerated version of a TV talk show host or a slimy car dealer,”...