Ariadne auf Naxos

by Richard Strauss, libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal

seen at Covent Garden on 10 October 2015

This revival of Christof Loy's 2002 production was directed by Julia Burbach, designed by Herbert Murauer and conducted by Lothar Koenigs. It featured Karita Mattila as Ariadne, Robert Dean Smith as Bacchus and Jane Archibld as Zerbinetta, with Ruxandra Donose as the Composer, Thomas Allen as the Music Master, Norbert Ernst as the Dancing Master and Christoph Guest as the Major Domo.

The opera comprises firstly a Prologue, in which preparations are being made and disrupted for the performance of a new opera about Ariadne at a private party, and secondly the Opera itself as 'amended' by the requirements imposed during the Prologue. It was developed (in 1916) from a 1912 project in which von Hofmannstahl and Strauss collaborated on a German version of Molière's play 'Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme'. This helps to explain the rather unusual construction of the piece. Somewhat in the manner of 'The Taming of the Shrew', once the framing device has set the scene and fulfilled its comic potential, it fades away; when the Opera is finished, so is the whole performance.

At the start of this production, guests are being welcomed in an opulent lobby, but some arrivals are firmly guided towards an elevator in the centre of the stage. As the elevator sinks, the whole floor rises to reveal another floor underneath, a really spectacular effect. This basement is the realm of the entertainers, where the Composer (a trouser role sung with highly strung 'first night nerves' by Ruxandra Donose) is hoping to adjust the score, and is horrified to discover that some low-brow comedians are also part of the entertainment. Matters only worsen when the unseen patron insists through his Major Domo that the comedians should take part in the opera, to save time. Predictably both sides are appalled, the high-brows thinking it beneath their dignity, and the low-brows sure that the opera will be stultifying and boring, ruining their chances of gaining a laugh. But beneath this ready stereotyping the major issues of the opera are already being raised - the conflicting attitudes to love and loyalty that permeate the human condition. This conflict seems fated not to be resolved - the rapprochement between the Composer and Zerbinetta (the leader of the comedians) is all too fleeting.

The opera singers in the Prologue appear to be preparing for a performance in eighteenth century dress with wide skirts, frock coats and impossible wigs. However when the Opera itself begins we are in a world of modern formality (evening dress for Ariadne, Bacchus and the island spirits) or informality (the comedians and Zerbinetta). The setting, notionally a desert island, is in fact a salon in the putative patron's mansion, with pastoral scenes painted on the walls and candles glowing on the floor - the quiet opening of the Opera is magical as the nymphs begin to extinguish the candles and to comment on Ariadne's perpetual mourning.

Even the nymphs - presumably part of the Composer's original plan - are critical of Ariadne. When Zerbinetta and her cohorts arrive, they are even less sympathetic and try to snap her out of her depression (as they see it). Again the question is raised - whether loyalty to a departed lover, or acceptance of the chances life brings, is a more authentic response. Zerbinetta, sung fantastically well by Jane Archibald, is all for life's chances, and Strauss provides a dazzling and technically difficult aria for her. Ariadne, beautifully sung by Karita Mattila, prefers to be loyal unto death. Even the arrival of Bacchus fails to dissuade her; she takes him to be Hermes and believes almost until the end that she is being led into death by him, while he, completely smitten by love for the first time, is all along proposing to lead her into new life. Strauss again provides the music which prevents Ariadne from merely indulging in self-pity; this production showed the gradual transformation of her self-awareness with great finesse.