Ariadne auf Naxos - Royal Opera House

Karita Mattila's presence guaranteed success for Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos at the Royal Opera House. Strauss was a pragmatic man of the theatre, who knew how a Big Name could win audiences. Mattila delivered. Her presence was commanding - every inch the glamour queen the primadonna is meant to be. She had the grand gestures and right amount of theatrical excess. But Ariadne auf Naxos isn't about ancient Greece. It's an opera about an opera, or rather,  as the Composer discovers, about the un-making of an opera. 

The Composer  (Ruxandra Donose) wants to write  about Ariadne, abandoned on an island. Strauss builds in references to Mozart, making wry jokes on the nature of art. If the Composer were really good he wouldn't be imitating someone else.  The Composer disappears after the Prologue, but Mozart lingers eternal. One of the Dryads, Ariadne's handmaidens, is costumed as Mozart. Appropriately, this Dryad is Echo (Kiandra Howarth). But even Mozart can't save things, as the show is taking place in the house of "the richest man in Vienna". His Major Domo (Christopher Quest) clashes with the Music Master (Thomas Allen). The man with the money wants fireworks and comedians and what he wants will happen.

This production, directed by Christof Loy, with designs by Herbert Murauer, emphasizes the duality in the opera. "Upstairs" in the Prologue is elegant but empty, and soon dispensed with. Loy stresses the individuality of each singer, so their purpose can be understood even by those in the audience who aren't familiar with the opera.  This further underlines the concept of multiple realities so fundamental to this opera.  That is the magic of theatre: it's not literal reality. Singers become supernatural maidens, and comic rogues become Commedia dell'arte archetypes. But Ariadne, too,  lives in a strange, unnatural reality . She's been on Naxos since Theseus dumped her there after giving her a kiss to steal the secret of the Minotaur. For years, she's lived in a cave driven half mad by her dreams of love.  It's Bacchus (Roberto Sacca) who brings her deliverance.  And Bacchus, the god of wine, brings intoxication, the illusion of escape.

Visually, the second act glows with jewel colours, emerald and sapphire, lit with details of gold and candlelight. The room is lined with late baroque wallpaper depicting Arcadian scenes, rich European fantasies of wilderness. Because we're seduced by this luxury and beauty, the ultimate tragedy hits even harder.  Ariadne isn't going to find happiness. The future lies with Zerbinetta (Jane Archibald)  Ariadne obsesses about death and misery. Zerbinetta gets on (and gets off), exuberantly, full of vigour and life. Strauss is writing about the making of theatre, but also commenting on music.  Looking backward is all very well, but the nature of true art is originality and creative renewal.

Karita Mattila's Ariadne is courageous. Mattila throws out her notes in the second act with bravado,  diva reborn. but Strauss created the part for an older singer, thoughtfully limiting vocal extremes to flatter voices that are still loved, and function well enough, even if they aren't quite at their peak. Zerbinetta's music, on the other hand, races up and down the scale, demanding great technique and coloratura display  Archibald's  "Grossmächtigen Prinzessin" was done with vigorous zest. Although she doesn't have the finesse of some of the great singers who have done this role, her vivacity compensates. Ariadne  may be comforted by the words, but how discomforting the singing must be for any older singer.

Ruxandra Donose sang a remarkably convincing Composer. It was hard to recognize her costumed as a man, but the distinctive timbre of her voice was unmistakable. What a pity Strauss dismisses the part: Donose makes the composer sound interesting as a person. Very strong singing in the other parts, enhanced by a staging that emphasizes their place in the opera. Markus Werba's Harlequin was superb,, as energetic and as witty as Archibald's Zerbinetta, which is quite saying something. Excellent ensemble work : Werba, Jeremy White, Wynne Evans and Paul Schweinester interacted  with precision, moving as a unit even when they weren't close together. That's good movement direction (Beate Vollack).

Antonio Pappano has been working flat out this week with Manon Lescaut (read my review here). He must have the stamina of a superman. I could have used more "fireworks" at the cataclysmic end of the Prologue. Pappano is a genius Puccini conductor, but he gets the lively gaiety in Strauss quite well.

One big plus : no ritual booing. Booing is a form of intimidation.  Booers have no right to inflict their opinions on others.  Almost inevitably booers don't really know the score and don't have the ability to take on board the simple fact that other people might be allowed different opinions. Booing is vulgar and coercive, a form of expression used by those too ill bred and ill informed to respect anyone other than themselves. Perhaps the penny has dropped that booing inhibits creativity and is fundamentally anti-art. 

Glyndebourne Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos review

Utterly mad but absolutely right - Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos started the Glyndebourne 2013 season with an explosion. Strauss could hardly have made his intentions more clear. Ariadne auf Naxos is not "about" Greek myth so much as a satire on art and the way art is made. Strauss could hardly have made his intentions more clear. His music is a clue. There are, of course, references to Mozart, but these are prettified and tarted up. Are Strauss and Hofmannsthal suggesting that the Composer courts success rather than art for arts sake? He is, after all, writing for "the richest man in Vienna".  The Music Master (Thomas Allen) clashes with the Major-domo (William Relton), but the firework display takes priority. Ariadne auf Naxos is an indictment of the system..

The Vorspeil and Opera are distinct, but only up to a point.  Strauss pits art against artifice, disguisng the true, radical meaning of his work behind a veneer of elegant stylization. But these are mind games. As Zerbinetta tells the Composer, "Auf dem Theater spiele ich die Kokette, wer sagt, dass mein Herz dabei im Spiele ist? Ich scheine munter und bin doch traurig, gelte für gesellig und bin doch so einsam" (In the theatre I play the coquette. But who says my heart is in the game? I seem cheerful, but I'm sad. I play to the crowd, but I'm so alone".)

Katharina Thoma's staging is erudite. Years later, firebombs would destroy many German theatres, symbolically wiping out the German musical tradition. Obviously this was nothing in comparison to the destruction wrought by politicians and their philistine followers, but to a man like Strauss, whose world revolved around Dresden and Munich, the bombings were a metaphor for mindless barbarism.   "The holiest shrine in the world", he wrote "Zerstört!". Although Strauss could not forsee the future, Ariadne auf Naxos was written during the First World War. As a modern audience, we cannot forget the far more destructive war that came after. There are relevant connections between Ariadne auf Naxos and Metamorphosen, which is perhaps Strauss's most explicit comment on the madness that is war. Until we stop giggling when someone opens his cloak to reveal RAF logos, we have learned nothing.

Strauss's score gives us other clues. The stock characters reference standard commedia dell'arte where figures are hidden behind masks. Greek myth itself uses archetypes as metaphor. If Ariadne were a "real" person, she'd be sectioned under the Mental Health Act, given her obsessive delusions about Theseus and suicide. Given that she and Bacchus both come from family backgrounds where women have sex with gods and monsters, they have a lot in common. But what psychiatrist would countenance that?  Soile Isokoski sang the glorious aria "Ein Schönes war" so beautifully that we could feel Ariadne's tragedy as if it were personal and universal. "Und ging im Licht und freute sich des Lebens!" became a brave cry of protest against the hospital where "normal" people don't understand her extreme personality. Yet like Zerbinetta, Ariadne will not be silenced. In the end,  she (sort of) gets what she needs, escaping the mundane world in which she's trapped into a kind of warped apotheosis of love, death and delusion.

 Strauss had mixed feelings about Tristan und Isolde. His own take on the Liebestod is delicously delirious. The references to the "drink" is particularly ironic, given that mental hospitals dispense chemical solutions just as Brangäne dispensed a drink that didn't do what it was supposed to.  Strauss writes the nurses's last song so they have to warble like mad Rhinemaidens, totally uncomprehending what's going on round them.  Against his better instincts, Bacchus (Sergey Skorokhodov) cannot help but succumb. At the end, Thoma's staging shows the hospital curtains billowing out like the sails of a ship, heading out at last for the freedom of the seas. The "sails" are lit by a red glow. Is this sunset or fire ? Is Valhalla burning ? Or does it suggest Dresden, Munich, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Hamburg or many other cities destroyed  since?

Isokoski is one of the great Strauss singers of our time, so it was a pity that the production made more of Laura Claycomb's one-dimensional Zerbinetta.The part is central to the work as Zerbinetta interacts with the Composer (Kate Lindsey) while the Prima Donna (Soile Isokoski) s too wrapped up in her "role" as mega-star. Ariadne is frigid. Zerbinetta goes to the opposite extreme. Given that Greek myth is full of bestiality and explicit sex, we really should not be alarmed that Zerbinetta, who doesn't feature in antiquity, is a nympho.  Compared with Ariadne's mother, Zerbinetta is almost healthy. Claycomb is good at being strident and brassy, so if the subtlety in the role didn't come over well, there was much else in the production to savour. When Claycomb throws off the restraints of the straitjacket, we thrill at the strength of her spirit. It's a brilliant image, totally in keeping with the meaning of the opera on many levels.

Although the Vorspeil and the Opera are, ostensibly separate, they are integral to each other. The Composer sings in the first part because he/she's written a score. But when the Opera actually takes place, the characters transform, as if they've taken on lives of their own.  Hoffmansthal and Strauss don't give the Composer anything to sing in the second part. The Composer storms out when he realizes that scores don't exist in limbo but are changed by circumstances and performance. Hence the psychic creative storm as this bombshell drops. In Thoma's production, the Composer is struck dumb with the horror that he/she is no longer "in control".   As a successful composer, Strauss knew full well that a score only becomes an opera when it is performed by musicians who think and feel. There is no such thing as "non-interpretation". Now, Lindsey makes her presence felt through her acting, rather than by her singing, in a thoughtful reversal of roles.  The Composer "is" part of the opera, silent or otherwise.

Strauss's score is brilliantly anarchic, extending the idea of multiple levels of reality. The Mozart and commedia dell'arte references jostle with references to Wagner, popular dance tunes and woozy bursts of fantasy. Vladimir Jurowski has a wonderful feel for Strauss's sense of humour. The brasses of the London Philharmonic Orchestra blare just enough so we can hear the parody, the winds (especially the bassoons) wail like a bunch of mock tubas. The strings reminded me of Strauss' Metamorphosen.  Humour is even more difficult to express in abstract music than more obvious emotions, because by its very nature, it's quixotic, tilting at the windmills of rigid literality.

Hence the vignettes, which Thoma stages so well. They break the intensity, injecting an irreverent sense of the absurd.  The nymphs, Naiad, Dryad and Echo are mindless, not "carers" so much as nurses who follow rules without question. But how lovingly they are sung and acted by Ana Maria Labin, Adriana Di Paola, and Gabriela Istoc. The Four Comedians,  Harlequin, Scaramuccio, Truffaldino and Brighella (Dmitri Vargin, James Kryshak, Torben Jürgens and Andrew Stenson) are even more impressively performed. When they  dance, every movement matches perfectly with the music: even their toes are tuned just right. The figures may be "fools" but they're done with panache and precision.  They practically steal the show. 

This Glyndebourne Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos has the makings of a classic, once audiences realize how genuinely true it is to the savage wit of Strauss and Hoffmansthal.  Ariadne auf Naxos subverts delusion and false images. We need its irreverence more than ever. 

Catch the screenings. Full review and cast list in Opera Today.

photos by Alastair Muir, courtesy Glyndebourne Festival

Glyndebourne Ariadne auf Naxos Kate Lindsey

Utterly mad but absolutely right - Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos started the Glyndebourne 2013 season with an explosion. Full review HERE. Naiads and Dryads as nurses. Ariadne and Zerbinetta patients in a mental hospital. But then, Strauss could hardly have made his intentions more clear. Vorspiel and Opera are quite distinct. But which is more real? Ariadne auf Naxos is not "about" Greek myth so much as a satire on art and the way art is made. The music is modern : snatches of waltz, moments of woozy fantasy: Strauss is referencing his own times.e
The Composer sings in the Vorspeil  because he/she thinks he/she can create a work of art. But the Opera takes on a manic new life of its own. The Composer (Kate Lindsey) watches in  mute horror  as the parts he thought he dictated express things he/she could hardly envisage. Strauss is sending up the very idea of art. He's also sending up social pretensions. Ariadne and Bacchus hardly come from "normal" families. Is it any surprise that Ariadne's fantasies seem quite insane? Freud would have had something to say about her sexual hangups, and Zerbinetta's lack thereof.  Strauss also satirizes other composers. No one is sacred. Rarely has the connection between Tristan und Isolde and the "opera" within Strauss's opera been made so explicit. Listen to the music and its parody of Wagner. Strauss's Liebestod unfolds as the hospital curtains billow outwards like the sails of a ship, lit by a red glow which suggests fire or sunset. Or, more potently, the burning of Valhalla.  Katharina Thoma's Ariadne auf Naxos is quite mad, but deliciously, deliriously werktreue, respecting Strauss and Hoffmannstahl's savage wit.

Instant opinion is almost always shallow. This production deserves much deeper thought. So I won't review it til tomorrow to do it justice. (please come back).  In the meantime, here is Robert Hugill's interview with Kate Lindsey in Opera Today. That's her in the photo, as The Composer (credit Alastair Muir) HERE IS A LINK TO MY FULL REVIEW WITH PHOTOS