The composer is stressed. His little opera ensemble is about to perform Ariadne auf Naxos, a grandiose opera of his own making, at the home of a wealthy man. But the very same evening a troupe of players led by the colourful Zerbinetta will also perform, and the two ensembles fight over who is to go first. The threat of cuts is driving the earnest composer to near breakdown. This is the comic prologue to the opera about Ariadne that the audience will be attending after the intermission.
After Elektra and Der Rosenkavalier, the composer Richard Strauss and the librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal were opera’s foremost duo in the first decades of the 20th century. They chose to follow up the two successes with a challenging experiment: an opera about an opera and a story about artistic creation. Ariadne auf Naxos is metafiction in its most enjoyable form, an opera that makes the audience aware of its own role in an entertaining way. It is a comic opera where spoken theatre is mixed with song. Strauss’ shimmeringly melodious and extravagantly orchestrated music is here performed under the baton of the Royal Swedish Opera Music Director Alan Gilbert.
Streamed on OperaVision on 9 December 2022 at 19:00 CET and available until 9 June 2023:
CAST
The Major-Domo
Andreas T Olsson
The Music Master
Ola Eliasson
The Composer
Johanna Rudström
The Tenor / Bacchus
Michael Weinius
An officer
Jesper Taube
The Dancing Master
Petter Moen
A wigmaker
Jan Sörberg
A lackey
Johan Edholm
Zerbinetta
Sofie Asplund
The Prima Donna / Ariadne
Christina Nilsson
Harlequin
Jens Persson Hertzman
Scaramuccio
Jonas Degerfeldt
Truffaldino
Erik Rosenius
Brighella
Klas Hedlund
Naiad - a nymph
Madeleine Allsop
Dryad - a nymph
Kari Koskinen
Echo - a nymph
Agnes Auer
Puppeteers
Henrik Bäckbro
Linn Bergstam
Annika From Borg
Orchestra
Royal Swedish Orchestra
Music
Richard Strauss
Text
Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Conductor
Alan Gilbert
Director
Katharina Jakhelln Semb
Set Design / Costumes
Susanne Mûnzner
Light
Susanna Hedin
Puppet Design
Kirjan Waage
Gwendolyn Warnock
(Wakka Wakka Productions)
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