Ariadne auf Naxos

“Transformation“ is the magic word in Hofmannsthal and Strauss's third major collaboration, Ariadne auf Naxos. Originally conceived as a sequel to Molière's comedy The Bourgeois Gentleman, the two artists equipped the piece, in the later version still performed today, with a newly created prologue that lends the opera's plot its own, highly revealing context: A young composer has written his first opera – Ariadne auf Naxos. This precocious masterpiece, pardon: is now to be premiered in the home of the richest man in Vienna. But boredom has given him the opportunity to use the literary material of antiquity to merge the tragedy in a nutshell with the comic farce of a well-known commedia troupe led by the shady Zerbinetta. From now on, the tragic plot is intermingled with lighter characters who have little to do with Ariadne's heroic grief. But the opera also progresses: At the end, the youthful god Bacchus – alias Dionysus, god of the theater – enters the stage and performs the miracle of transformation, which saves past pains into a purified life instead of simply laughing them off.

Director Nina Russi stages the famous confusion surrounding art and artists as a parable of artistic integrity: Where does the work of art fit into the hustle and bustle of everyday theater life? Where does it shine among the masks and vanities? And how does one maintain the joy of theater in all its many forms and colors?

Recommended for ages 14 and up

program

Ariadne auf Naxos
Oper in einem Akt nebst einem Vorspiel von Richard Strauss
Text von Hugo von Hofmannsthal
In deutscher Sprache mit deutschen Untertiteln

Place

Tiroler Landestheater Innsbruck (English: Tyrolean State Theatre) is the state theatre in Innsbruck, Austria, located near the historic Altstadt (Old Town) section of the city. The theatre is surrounded by Imperial Hofburg, the Hofgarten, and SOWI Faculty of the University of Innsbruck. The main theatre has about 800 seats and the studio theatre in the basement has around 250. Plays, operas, operettas, musicals and dance theatre are performed at the theatre.