ARIADNE AUF VIENNA

I remember it was a Monday and only our second day in Vienna back in the early spring of 2001. I was attempting to convince my travel companions to join me in a first inaugural experience of the legendary Vienna Staatsoper later that night where the single selling point I could muster for them was that the world famous soprano Cheryl Studer was singing the title role of Strauss's 1912 opera Ariadne auf Naxos. Only one other member of the group even remotely knew who she was.

Knowing very little myself about Richard Strauss's operas outside of the famous trio (“Hab’ mir’s gelobt, ihn lieb zu haben”) from Der Rosenkavalier, I was in danger of risking my reputation as one of the group's two appointed culture czars and prematurely blowing our collective budget early on in this Austrian adventure of ours.

Of course, I reasoned with them all that simply imbibing the atmosphere of the grand old opera house in the city of dreams would be worth the price of admission, but the general feeling amongst the group was that it would have been preferable to see a box office favourite such as Figaro, Fidelio or La Boheme if we were going to go big for a first time round. Clearly the Strauss name, synonymous with the city of Vienna held no sway for us just yet. Insert face palm emoji here.

Nevertheless, Cheryl Studer (for me at least) provided just enough motive to take the plunge and thus, Ariadne awaited us inside the theatre.

Sitting in the cheapest seats available to us up in the gods, marvelling at our perfect view of the stage, I was at this precise moment, 23 years old and blissfully unaware of the profound effect this short, but sweet, comic opera would have on the rest of my life just a few hours after it had finally concluded.

Without following the surtitles and with a limited grasp of the German language, I had ascertained only the basic synopsis: a Major Domo (Chief Steward) requests that due to a dinner which has overrun for the richest man in Vienna and his guests, both the pre-booked Burlesque Group and Opera Company will now have to perform at the exact same time in the evening so that the entertainment can be wrapped up for the firework display due in the garden at 9 o clock.

By the group's common consensus, the prologue, which lasted around forty minutes, was far too chatty and frenetic with none of us really grasping what exactly was going on. I feared I might have a mutiny on my hand with talk of a potential walk-out if "that rubbish" was to continue into act one which was due shortly after the interval break. It could have almost been an extension of the opera itself.

Very meta now I think back on it.

As the curtain lifted for the second half, I felt little hope things were going to pick up for us.

A slow, funereal pace ushered in by the strings didn't bode particularly well for the promise of a more engaging hour or so of what was left of the piece.

So much for the comedy we'd been promised.

We finally got to see Ariadne on the island of Naxos, staged inside the owner's lavish country house, bemoaning her abandonment by her lover Theseus and kept company by three ethereal nymphs Naiad, Dryad and Echo. I could at least verify to my companions that the large lady sprawled across the steps of the mini ampitheatre was indeed Cheryl Studer who I had barely recognised in the prologue due to her brief, 'blink and you'll miss it' appearance from the on-stage dressing room.

I could see shoulders visibly relax all around me as Studer's star power began to uncoil with long sonorous vocal lines of burnished gold. Suddenly, the disapointment of the prologue was being erased by the aged beauty of the soprano's voice and I started to become less conscious of everything surrounding me, including my twitchy companions, as I focused on Ariadne and her quite understandable grief.

Having happily resigned myself to a prolonged drawn out tragedy from here on in, the sudden emergence of the Burlesque Group (whom I'd completely forgotten about) suddenly appeared tentatively from the wings to console the heartbroken Ariadne and consequently brought with them the comedy I feared had already deserted us in the prologue.

As the contrast between the old world classical heroine Ariadne and the new world modern Zerbinetta from the Burlesque Group became increasingly obvious, the comic genius of the opera began to reveal itself. Strauss and his librettist Hugo Von Hofmanstahl had clearly enjoyed depicting this impish coquette comforting the glacial austerity of the Cretan princess bereft on her lonely island.

Was this the beginning of post-modernism in opera? Maybe.

The set piece of act one was a musically vertiginous aria (Grossmächtige Prinzessin) performed by Zerbinetta as she pragmatically advised Ariadne and attempts to steer her away from her doom laden romantic fatalism. The music at this point was so dazzling and vocally acrobatic that it finally snuffed out once and for all any remaining concerns amongst the group about this Monday night indulgence.  

And then, with the surprise arrival of a boat heralding the entrance of Bacchus (Dionysus,) we were swept from the commedia dell'arte of Zerbinetta and her troupe into a sumptious, rhapsodic Straussian love duet that could have given Tristan and Isolde a good run for their money.

Thus, the modern world of Zerbinetta and her troupe were sidelined by the ecstastic lovers left on stage as everything dissolved into that transcendent feeling of totality that all great art achieves when it reaches the summit of its ambition.

It seemed in this sublime finale that the opera was finally drawing the curtain on a hundred years or so of romantic opera as Zerbinetta offered a final musical aside:"Kommt der neue Gott gegangen, hingegeben sind wir stumm! When the new god comes along, we are rendered captive, dumb!" as Bacchus vindicates her observation with his concluding phrases before all that was left was the orchestra and the fireworks to bring the evening's entertainment to a close.

As the ensuing thunderous applause threatened to give us all tinnutus, we left the opera house feeling like a million dollars, elevated by the art we had just immersed ourselves in.

In search of a bar for some late supper and drinks, there was an  unspoken feeling amongst the group that we had finally arrived in Vienna and had already successfully assimilated ourselves into the local culture.

In other words, we were no longer tourists.

Like Bacchus I have since returned to Ariadne on her island many times again, not in Vienna, alas, but in London (ROH), Bristol (WNO) and Cardiff (WNO) where both she and her nymphs' siren song call to me and remind me of that immortal first night in Vienna where I was put under an indelible spell of love, tragedy and comedy, never to underestimate the genius of Strauss and Von Hofmannstahl ever again.