Amber Wagner (as Ariadne) and Brandon Jovanovich (as Bacchus) perform in the dress rehearsal of Ariadne auf Naxos at the Lyric Opera of Chicago Wednesday. | John J. Kim~Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times and suntimes.com,
Sunday November 20, 2011 4:46PM CST
Lyric’s ‘Ariadne auf Naxos’ achieves pure bliss
Wagner, Coote, Christy all rise
'Ariadne auf Naxos'
Lyric Opera of Chicago
Through December 11
Civic Opera House, 20 North Wacker Drive
(312) 332-2244, lyricopera.org.
BY ANDREW PATNER
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
It’s an opera about unexpected things clicking where in a successful production you shouldn’t hear a single click. It’s a meshing of comedy and tragedy, onstage and backstage, love and laughter, theatre and life, and even life and its power over death. It’s one of the most clever stageworks ever devised, and in the right hands and with the right voices, it can be one of the most moving.
The title can be confusing. Ariadne auf Naxos, which opened Saturday night at the Civic Opera House, is the title of the “serious” opera contained in the story of a set of after-dinner entertainments given a bizarre scheduling shuffle and of the over-all work by Richard Strauss and his great librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal. The creative pair’s original 1912 production was even more difficult to stage and much longer, containing as it did an entire Molière play.
But by 1916, the two achieved the perfect version we know today. A 40-minute Prologue holds the antic preparations at the home of “the richest man in Vienna” of a headstrong young composer’s new opera on mythological themes and the running about of a commedia dell’arte troupe dismissive of “high art.” Members of both performing camps get a shock from their host when they’re informed that rather than rushing through their disparate offerings sequentially, they’re to present them at the same time so as not to run into a scheduled fireworks display. After an intermission, approximating the dinner of the rich man’s guests, the 80-minute operatic act itself shows the results of this enforced blending.
You might expect the next sentence to read “Merriment and hijinks ensure.” But Hofmannsthal’s complex conception and Strauss’s brilliant execution, while filled with joy and comedy at many levels, are much deeper than that; by the time the seriousness of the comedy and the joy of the tragedians is made clear, the opera, the story, and in this production, the staging are freed from any frame and float into a combination of emotional and music bliss and philosophical knowing.
The return of John Cox’s 1998 production to Lyric Opera is most welcome, for Cox, designer Robert Perdziola, and lighting artist Duane Schuler fully understand every aspect of the concept, libretto, and music; clearly, Cox’s associate director Bruno Ravella had coached this new cast to do the same.
Though this revival was planned well before his arrival in Chicago, Lyric’s new general director Anthony Freud’s worthy fingerprints were all about, too, from the ousting of the announced Ariadne/Prima Donna, the now problematic soprano Deborah Voigt, and her replacement with the remarkable rising star and Ryan Center alum Amber Wagner, to the breath-of-fresh-air supertitles by Colin Ure (Freud’s partner), to a more clearly (and honestly) marked cast list in the program.
Music director Sir Andrew Davis has long been what his fellow Britons call “a Strauss man” and his expertise and natural breathing with this lush score made him a superb guide for Strauss’s streamlined “court orchestra” of 37 players and for the very fine young cast. Fully convincing musically and dramatically, English mezzo Alice Coote made you wish The Composer’s role was not confined to the Prologue. Theatrically, soprano Anna Christy’s Zerbinetta, the insightful comedienne who at first seems only a tart, was a perfect creation, and her connection to the score of her great aria was absolutely direct. As Bacchus, the tenor-god who rescues the forlorn Ariadne from her deserted island stranding, Brandon Jovanovich had great physical and intelligent presence. Having seen some top-drawer work from him at Lyric and as Siegmund in San Francisco Opera’s “Ring,” I’d guess that he was just having momentary difficulties opening night with the closing sections of a notoriously hard and high role.
The large supporting cast moved gracefully in their vocal and stage positions. The trio of nymphs, soprano Kiri Deonarine (Echo), mezzo Jamie Barton (Dryad), and soprano Nili Riemer (Naiad), were particularly effective. Veteran German baritone Eike Wilm Schulte’s Music Master, tenor Edward Mout’s Dancing Master, and Ryan Center star tenor René Barbera’s Brighella stood out among the many character roles.
But Strauss kept his slightly misleading title in part because this opera was, for him really about Ariadne, as character, spirit, woman, and soprano -- the most important things in his world. And Wagner’s Chicago début in this role was one for hailing. The music just poured naturally from her at all times, whether in mournful or soaring sections. Like her character at opera’s end, she is going places, and currently they appear to have no limit.
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