ARIADNE AUF NAXOS
Opera in One Act with a Prologue by Richard Strauss (1864 - 1949)
Libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Premiere:
Original version: Stuttgart, 25 October 1912
Revised version: Vienna, 4 October 1916
CAST
Prima Donna / Ariadne- Jessye Norman
Tenor / Bacchus - James King
Composer - Tatiana Troyanos
Zerbinetta - Kathleen Battle
Music Master - Franz Ferdinand Nentwig
Harlequin - Stephen Dickson
Brighella - Anthony Laciura
Scaramuccio - Allan Glassman
Dancing Master - Joseph Frank
Wig Maker - Russell Christopher
Officer - Charles Anthony
The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra conducted by JAMES LEVINE
Staged by Bodo Igesz (based on the Carl Ebert production of December 1962)
Recorded at the MET on 12 March 1988
Sung in German with English sub-titles
SYNOPSIS
THE PROLOGUE
In the house of the “richest man in Vienna” a “great assembly” is being prepared. The host’s plan is that the “distinguished guests” should be treated first to a splendid banquet, next to an opera seria, Ariadne auf Naxos, composed especially for the occasion, and finally, “at nine o’clock sharp”, to a firework display in the garden. It has reached the ears of the Music Master (whose pupil has composed the commissioned work) that the heroic opera is to be followed by yet another piece: a farce with music performed by a troupe of Italian comedians. To his horror this rumour is confirmed by the Major-Domo. The Music Master protests vainly against this unseemly propinquity of two opposed art forms and desperately tries to think of a way to convey the shocking news to his sensitive pupil.
An Officer wishes to pay his respects to the leading lady of the comedians, Zerbinetta. He roughly brushes aside the ingratiating but intrusive Footman. The slighted Footman then vents his anger on the Composer, who at first hardly notices the crude vulgarities and spiteful intimations of the servant, being so wrapped up in his creative anxiety and opening-night nerves.
The Composer becomes cross with the Footman for leaving him without offering any assistance. However, new ideas about his opera soon clam him down again. The singer of the role of Bacchus, a bald-headed tenor, abuses the Wigmaker when his vanity becomes offended. Neither takes any notice of the musician, who is in the throes of last-minute inspirations and decisions. Zerbinetta, eager for a compliment from the Officer, expresses her fear that after the boring opera it will be hard to rouse the audience to laughter. Even the Prima Donna, who will sing the role of Ariadne, has her mind on quite different things from the impending operatic première. Suddenly struck by the charm of Zerbinetta, who is a stranger to him, the Composer fails to hear the derogatory remarks about Ariadne auf Naxos made by the Dancing Master.
Taking advantage of the Composer’s infatuation with Zerbinetta, the Music Master judges that a favourable opportunity has now arisen to make the change of programme palatable to his protégé. But the mere thought of a “monkey comedy” coming straight afterwards sends the Composer into a fit of wild desperation, from which the memory of a melody that he has invented only a short while before quickly releases him, however.
Zerbinetta startles the Composer out of his self-absorption by introducing her four partners. She and the Prima Donna exchange insults over his head.
The Dancing Master and Music Master try to settle the ladies’ dispute by paying compliments to “the incomparable Zerbinetta” and “the phenomenal Ariadne”.
Contrary to all expectations, the Major-Domo has come to command not the beginning of the operatic performance but, following instructions from his master, a new change of programme. Partly to accommodate the firework display, which is to begin at “nine o’clock sharp”, and partly out of pique over the “miserable scene” of a “desert island” which his opulently furnished house is expected to harbour, the money-conscious Maecenas now wishes the “dance masquerade” and the “tragedy” to be performed simultaneously, without exceeding by the slightest amount the time previously allotted to Ariadne alone. The Composer’s angry protests against the absurd mixing together of Ariadne’s fate and a comic interlude are coolly ignored.
The Dancing Master, experienced in the ways of the theatre, and the Music Master, mindful of the fee, make common efforts to persuade the deeply offended Composer to make some essential cuts.
The Tenor and Prima Donna, suddenly taking an interest in the composition, watch jealously over their parts to ensure that the cuts are applied only to their partner’s part, not to their own. The Dancing Master outlines the plot of the opera to Zerbinetta, who interprets it in her own characteristic way.
The Composer tries to make her understand that Ariadne, the “one in a million”, could belong to only one man – Theseus – and after his betrayal to none other than Death. Disquieted, but at the same time enchanted, he listens to Zerbinetta’s worldly-wise reinterpretation of the story as a commonplace fate. Zerbinetta relays her own version of the Ariadne story to her partners: it is no longer a deep spiritual tragedy, a unique sequence of events, but an infinitely repeatable standard plot.
The process of death, metamorphosis and deification envisaged by the Composer is disparaged by Zerbinetta as an “extravagance” that needs to be handled with “good sense”.
The Composer falls for the practised coquetry of the lady comedian, rich in stage experience. The blissfulness of this moment becomes transformed for the credulous young man into a deceptive vision of eternal bliss.
The Music Master, who as producer of the spectacle also has the responsibility for looking after the performers, calls for the show to start. Once again, the Prima Donna had need of his kind words of encouragement.
The Composer, still enraptured by his most recent experience, has failed to notice the sign to begin and, possessed of a new courage, rises to an ecstatic climax in praise of music, the “sacred art” (Seien wir wieder gut… Musik ist eine heilige Kunst).
The sight of the comedians ready to go on stage tears him away abruptly from his paradisical musings… he sees his “sacredness” defiled by their capers. In mortal desperation he runs away, for it is already too late to prevent the play from starting.
THE OPERA
The king’s daughter Ariadne had formerly saved Prince Theseus of Athens from the perils of the Cretan Labyrinth. She became his lover and joined him on his further travels. But faithless Theseus left her behind on the deserted island of Naxos, where, inconsolable, she awaits only death.
The three nymphs secretly listen to Ariadne’s laments, which she is unable to stop even when asleep. The three have long since grown used to them.
Ariadne awakens from her painful dreams: fragments of a past that, in her confusion she can no longer fit together coherently, torment her.
The Italian comedians attempt, through their improvisations, to join in the action.
Ariadne’s mind is torn between yearning for death and memories of “a beautiful thing” that was called Theseus-Ariadne (Ein Schönes war).
Harlequin’s song of consolation fails to make the desired impression on Ariadne.
Immersed in mourning, Ariadne conjures up a vision of Hermes, the messenger of death, who will release her from her “burdensome life” and lead her into the realm of the dead (Es gibt ein Reich).
The comedians do their best to cheer the “sad lady” up with singing and dancing, but without success. Zerbinetta finally chases her companions off the stage in order to try by herself.
The comedian Zerbinetta embarks on a vain attempt to strike up a conversation with Ariadne, a king’s daughter, as if she were one of her own people (Großmächtige Prinzessin). Ariadne draws back silently into her cave before Zerbinetta is able to deliver her words of wisdom to the effect that all women suffer the fate of being abandoned, and there are “innumerable desert islands” like hers. But a new lover, like a god, will surely arrive and turn sadness into the happiness of love, as her own experience alone has convincingly shown her.
Zerbinetta does not abandon her hope of winning over “deaf” Ariadne to her way of thinking at a later stage. With her four partners she acts a play about love, seduction and rivalry that conforms to her own philosophy: it is infinitely repeatable, a standard plot that always remains valid. Harlequin, a suitor for Zerbinetta’s favour, laughingly triumphs over his angry rivals.
The three nymphs excitedly announce the approach of a “charming boy”. In their eagerness to tell his life-story, they share it among themselves: Bacchus, the son of Zeus and Semele, has been raised by Nymphs and was only yesterday a guest of the enchantress Circe, whose magic gift of turning men into animals failed to work on him, the young god.
Driven by an indefinable yearning since his love-feast with Circe, Bacchus draws near to Ariadne’s island.
The nymphs lend support to his singing in nervous expectation.
Although Circe did not have the power to turn Bacchus, the demigod, into an animal, he is still deeply affected by the mysteries of his encounter with her. Ariadne thinks that the long-awaited messenger of death is finally coming and listens in ecstasy to his voice. When Bacchus stands before her, they experience a confusing mixture of the unforeseen, the remembered and the dimly anticipated. In “raw shock” Ariadne first believes that Theseus is coming towards her… then it seems to her as if all her expectations directed towards Hermes, the messenger of death, will be fulfilled by Bacchus. In contrast, Bacchus allows himself to be taken captive by the magic of this new encounter, but not without fear of a recurrence of his recent experience with Circe. The failure of each to recognise each other leads them involuntarily towards a deeper knowledge of the self and the other. Bacchus, the son of a god and a mortal, now becomes aware for the first time of his own divinity.
Ariadne, the seeker after death, awakens to new life in Bacchus’s arms.
A “miracle” occurs. The “magic” worked by Ariadne and the “transformation” wrought by Bacchus resolve all contradictions: to hold fast to memory and yet be able to forget… to remain true to oneself and yet be capable of change.
Ariadne brings the sorrows of the past with her into the happiness of the present that love has awakened. In the mysteries of divine rapture and undying love, Zerbinetta, triumphant, is able to discern merely one more proof of her old law of existence that decrees an eternal and unchanging alternation of happy and sad experiences in love.
Ariadne’s experience of sorrow makes Bacchus a god. The expectation of death is transformed within her into the experience of a new love (Deiner hab ich um alles bedurft! – Laß meine Schmerzen nicht verloren sein).
