Ariadne auf Naxos is probably the most non-standard opera of the outstanding tandem - composer Richard Strauss and poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal. And not only thanks to the unusual history of creation. It combines the seemingly incompatible: rude comedy and lofty tragedy, Viennese stiffness and mischief - with the masks of the Italian commedia dell'arte.
The history of the composition began in 1911, when Richard Strauss and his constant collaborator Hugo von Hofmannsthal decided to thank the director Max Reinhardt for his invaluable help in preparing the world premiere of the opera The Rosenkavalier. Hofmannsthal wrote to his father: "Together we want to compose a very small opera only for the chamber ensemble, which will be played at Reinhardt's as an insert into the performance." At that time, Hofmannsthal was working on a reworking of Molière's play The Bourgeoisie in the Nobility, and he planned to use Ariadne auf Naxos as the finale of his play, "recomposed" by him: “This is one of the most personal and dearest works for me; conceived as a whole, consisting of parts, it can exist, can only arise where a high theatrical genius is able to form parts into a whole ... "
Initially, the premiere was planned to be played in a drama theater - the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, which was then directed by Reinhardt. However, the demanding composer rightly expressed doubts whether the orchestra of the drama theater would be able to cope with his score, and therefore offered to play the premiere in Dresden. But the stage of the Saxon Opera was too big for such an "elegant little thing." Reluctantly, Hofmannsthal agreed to transfer the premiere to the small stage of the Stuttgart Opera, whose management promised to fulfill all the wishes of the authors. And there were quite a few of them, including the condition that Reinhardt would certainly act as a director and several actors and actresses from his theater, as well as opera stars of the first magnitude - Maria Yeritsa and Margarita Zims, should be invited.
The world premiere took place in Stuttgart in 1912 and was not a great success, not least because of the length of the performance. Given the technical overhead, the play by Molière/Hoffmannsthal lasted more than three hours before the start of the actual opera, and the duration of Ariadne auf Naxos itself was almost an hour and a half. Thus, the action lasted about five hours!
The idea to combine a full-fledged dramatic and full-fledged musical performances turned out to be nothing more than a utopia. A few years later, Strauss and Hofmannsthal returned to reworking the opera in order to create a composition without reference to Molière's plot. The premiere took place on 4 October 1916 at the Vienna State Opera. It is in this version of Ariadne auf Naxos that to this day they play in the largest theaters of the world. And the title part was included in the repertoire of such outstanding singers as Maria Reining, Leoni Rizanek, Gundula Janowitz, Anna Tomova-Sintova, Jessie Norman, Deborah Voight.
The tradition of performing the opera Ariadne auf Naxos has not developed in Russia. After all, the Russian premiere of this work took place only in 2004 at the Mariinsky Theatre. In 2016, the premiere took place in Moscow on the stage of the Chamber Musical Theater. Boris Pokrovsky, who a year later became the Bolshoi Chamber Stage.
