Ariadne auf Naxos

In terms of opera history, Ariadne auf Naxos belongs to a genre that is usually referred to today as »meta-opera«. These are operas about operas, i.e. operas whose subject and genre is opera itself and the conventions of the work's creation. As a rule, these are satires such as L'opera seria (1769) by Leopold Gassmann. The text of such operas pokes fun at the usual practices of the opera business and its effects on the opera, exaggerating them to the point of grotesqueness in order to achieve comic effects. The composers proceed in the same way with the usual stylistic elements of opera seria and their performance practice by the singers. Strauss could not follow such a pattern for two reasons. Firstly, Hofmannstahl's text was so artificial that drastic musical comedy would have contradicted the text. And secondly, Strauss' penchant for subtle irony stood in the way of the merely bold use of satirical stylistic quotations. (Michael Walter)

 

In Greek mythology, Ariadne was the daughter of the Cretan king Minos (a son of Zeus) and Pasiphaë, herself the daughter of the sun god Helios. When the hero Theseus set out to kill the man-eating Minotaur, who lived in a labyrinth on Crete, Ariadne, Minotaur's half-sister, fell in love with him. She helped Theseus by giving him a thread, which he used to find his way out of the labyrinth after killing the Minotaur. Together with Theseus, Ariadne fled from Crete to Athens, but was left alone on the island of Naxos in her sleep - and despaired. There she was found by the god of fertility, Dionysus (Bacchus), a son of Zeus. Dionysus fell in love with Ariadne on Naxos and married her; as his wife, Ariadne gave birth to four sons. (From the 8th book of Ovid's Metamorphoses)

 

(Source: wiener.staatsoper.at)