73 - Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos

An opera of that is hard to pin down. At once parody, homage, and at the other a mystical ephemeral creation. Few opera plots are as complex as Ariadne. In the house of the richest man in Vienna, a celebration is underway and a young composer has composed an opera for the occasion. 

But the rich man has also hired a troop of players to provide bawdy comedic songs. Much to the young composer's horror, the host has decided to run the comedy after the opera. Of course the start of the opera is delayed and the rich man decides that in order to finish in time for the planned fireworks, the tragic opera and the bawdy comedy should be performed simultaneously on the same stage. 

We then see the opera performed. Poor Ariadne has been abandoned on Naxos and prays for death. The bawdy comedians try to help but in the end she is rescued by Bacchus and the sail off together. The comedians continue to pop in and out throughout the opera, leading to much confusion and hilarity. If the story is complex and multilayered, the music is even more so. Echoes of 17th Century dance music mix with Wagnerian textures... Comic lightness and the heaviness of tragic opera. Of course much of this has it tongue firmly in its cheek. 

The opera was originally composed by Strauss as a divertissement to sit in a production of Molière's play Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. It was later expanded into a full evening piece in its own right and premiered in 1916. Today the piece has it place in the repertoire assured as it contains glorious music of a dramatic Wagnerian nature and fiendish coloratura singing for Zerbinetta, the hussy that leads the comedians. The Composer has to be one of the best mezzo soprano roles composed in the 20th Century. 

Here is Emily Magee as Ariadne and Jonas Kaufmann as Bacchus at the Salzburg Festival in 2012 in a rare staging of the original play/opera hybrid. Any excuse to post a picture of a man in a leopard print suit...