Ariadne on Naxos - opera

“Transformation” is the magic word in Hofmannsthal and Strauss’ third major collaboration, Ariadne auf Naxos. Originally conceived as a sequel to Molière’s comedy Der Bürger als Edelmann (The Bourgeois Gentleman), the two artists equipped the piece in the later version, which is still performed today, with a newly created prelude that gives the opera’s plot its own highly revealing framework: A young composer has written his first opera – Ariadne auf Naxos. The precocious masterpiece is now to be premiered in the home of the richest man in Vienna. But out of boredom, he decides to fuse the aesthetic ancient material, the tragedy in one act, with the comical farce of a well-known commedia troupe led by the shady Zerbinetta. From now on, lighter characters who have little to do with Ariadne's heroic grief are mixed into the tragic plot. But the opera also progresses: at the end, the youthful god Bacchus – alias Dionysus, god of theatre – enters the stage and brings about the miracle of transformation, which saves past pain in a purified continuation of life, instead of merely laughing it off.