Ariadne on Naxos

For more than a hundred years, the creators, realizing Ariadne on Naxos, have been playing with their audience. Richard Strauss's opera is a story about us - about how we try to reconcile reason with feelings, and art with everyday chaos. As a result of the composer's collaboration with the acclaimed playwright and poet Hugon von Hofmannstahl, a story was created about the interpenetration of different worlds: melancholy and smile, despair and immortality, ideas and reality. It is also a colorful, artistic patchwork, the neatly stitched parts of which are arranged in reflections on the value of different theatrical genres and the role of the artist in art.

The plot of the play, masterfully combining elements of seriousness and comism, consists of two parts: the Prologue and the Opera proper. The prologue shows preparations for an artistic evening in the residence of a wealthy patron of art, who ordered two performances for his guests: a serious opera about the mythological Ariadne and a comic opera with the participation of a troupe of wandering actors. Due to time constraints, the patron orders that both tracks be staged at the same time. Artists, at first outraged, have to compromise and find themselves in a new, absurd situation for them. The second part takes us to the mythical island of Naxos, where the eponymous Ariadne despairs after parting with Theseus. The desperate daughter of the King of Crete tries to be comforted by a troupe of comedians and the divine Bacchus himself. Will we have a happy ending in the old style this time?

Battle for Ariadne

Ariadne on Naxos is the third opera created by the composer-literary duo Richard Strauss - Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It was originally conceived as one of the parts of the play The Bourgeois the Nobleman (premiere on 25 October 1912, Hoftheater, Stuttgart). When he began work on his work, Strauss treated it rather as a kind of triviality - unlike Hofmannsthal, who saw great potential in the composition from the very beginning. It was only the exchange of correspondence between the creators that made Strauss approach his work with greater enthusiasm. The show, of which Ariadne was a part - despite the great success - quickly came off the poster. Hofmannsthal could not regret it, because he simply fell in love with Straussian composition. So he managed to convince Strauss to give his work a second life and turn it into an independent stage work. The premiere of Ariadne at the Vienna Hofoper (October 4, 1916) was a great success, thanks to which the composition became part of the world opera repertoire.

Is Ariadna on Naxos, a co-production of the Cracow Opera, Tel Aviv-Jaf Opera and the Dortmund Opera, the next installment of the age-old question: to have or to be? It is worth taking this game and seeing for yourself.