TWENTIETH century opera is infrequently performed at Harvard, mainly because the difficulty of the music, the problems in performance, and the relative unpopularity of the style all militate against either a decent production or a box office success. The main reason. it seems, Lowell House was able to stage its elaborate production of Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress is the hundred and fifty or so opera patrons, ranging from Nathan Pusey to McGeorge Bundy, who paid twenty dollars apiece for the privilege of attending Thursday night's black tie opening and reception in the Lowell House dining hall.

Lowell House's Rake is a generally competent performance, one in which the director and all the leads are professionals, imported from outside of Harvard. The orchestra, directed by Gerald Moshell, is well rehearsed and effective, with the exception of some weakness in the violins and an occasional embarrassment from the born. Moshell has done a fine job in putting together and preparing an orchestra at the same time of year when two other operas and the HRO are also performing.

In the role of Tom Rakewell, the protagonist of the piece, Frank Hoffmeister is competent but not brilliant. His voice is strong and far-reaching, but his diction is often poor, and especially in the first act, the conductor has had him sing much too slowly. Ernest Triplett as Nick Shadow, Rakewell's servant, dominates the production, with both a good voice and an understanding of his role that makes him also a strong actor. Eunice Alberts as Baha, the bearded lady, is a fine comic heroine, with a rich vibrato that nicely complements her outlandishly ornate costume. Irene Elvin as Anne Truelove, Tom's true love is a fine singer, although not as good an actress as Miss Alberts.

THE RAKES PROGRESS, with its Stravinsky score, its W. H. Auden-Chester Kallman libretto, and its ultimate genesis in Hogarth, is one of the most interesting artistic ventures of the century. Tom Rakewell is portrayed as an innocent, even likeable young man, who is led astray by the conniving servant, Nick Shadow, and robbed of his riches and his innocence. After Rakewell has scorned his true love and taken up with the bearded lady, Shadow reveals himself as a diabolical agent, and plays Tom a card game, with Rakewell's soul as the stakes. Although Tom wins at this operatic Seventh Seal, the moral of the story turns out to be that such things don't have happy endings, and Tom ends his days stark raving mad.

Auden's touch in the libretto is the saving grace of the plot, which is actually not as ludicrous as it sounds, The book is extremely well done, enough to carry even the weak moments in the music.

This production of The Rake is uneven, the first act going far too slowly, the others much more well-paced. The staging is ornate, with nothing loft to the viewer's imagination, including even the sedan chair in which Baba is carried around by her coterie of overdressed servants, and the two-foot-long stuffed bird she carries in her hand. Perhaps the most annoying part of the production is its director, Michael Kaye, who spent the early part of Thursday's performance bustling about officiously, but relatively silently, and then ruined the last act by shouting directions to the conductor, singers, and stage crew during the course of the performance from his front row seat. A little more tact would have been in order.

Althoug there are flaws in the production, it is nonetheless of great musical interest. In general, it is a good treatment of a complex work. Lowell House's Rake is a more challenging undertaking than a production of some Mozart warhorse, the kind of thing House opera groups usually do, and much more worth seeing.