Ariadne Auf Naxos: Sinopoli / Skd Voigt Dessay Von Otter Heppner

Brilliant Opera Collection
Richard Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos - complete

Deborah Voigt
Natalie Dessay
Anne Sofie von Otter
Ben Heppner, etc
Staatskapelle Dresden
Giuseppe Sinopoli, conductor

Initially designed to be a play with music, it quickly became apparent to Strauss and his librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal that what was intended as an after-dinner entertainment would require an opera company to perform it. So, in 1916, a 30-minute ‘divertissement’ became a 90-minute opera, with a newly composed prologue.

Set in the house of ‘the richest man in Vienna’, it concerns the struggles of a young composer to arrange a performance of his new opera for the guests his master has invited to the house. His opera is about Ariadne on the island of Naxos, and all the backstage chaos and bitching and scratching among performers and the domestic staff is wonderfully portrayed by Strauss. The mutual hostility between the Major-Domo and the composer is exquisite. The prologue is followed by the opera proper, and the marvel of the orchestration is especially notable ? with just 36 players playing some of Strauss’s most sumptuous music.

Recording from 2000
‘Any opera house in the world would think themselves fortunate to assemble this cast … A landmark in the history of the gramophone … this really does triumph over them all.’ Gramophone
Booklet contains an introduction to the opera and a comprehensive synopsis of the plot
Adverts in Gramophone, plus major editorial and feature coverage in the specialist classical press ( Brilliant Classics )