Director Nina Russi stages the famous confusion about art and artists as a parable of artistic integrity: Where is the work of art in the hustle and bustle of everyday theater life? Where does it shine between masks and vanity? And how does one preserve the joy of theater in all its many forms and colors?
"Transformation" is the magic word in Hofmannsthal and Strauss' third major collaboration Ariadne auf Naxos. Originally intended as a sequel to the Molière comedy Der Bürger als Edelmann, the two artists added a newly created prelude to the play in the later version that is still performed today, which gives the opera's plot its own, highly revealing framework: a young composer has written his first opera - Ariadne auf Naxos.
The precocious masterpiece is now to be premiered in the house of the richest man in Vienna. However, out of boredom, the richest man has the beautiful antique material to fuse the tragedy with the amusing farce of a well-known commedia troupe of the shady Zerbinetta. From now on, the tragic plot is interspersed with lighter characters who have little to do with Ariadne's heroic grief. But the opera also progresses: at the end, the youthful god Bacchus - alias Dionysus, god of the theater - enters the stage and brings about the miracle of transformation, saving past pain into a purified life instead of merely laughing at it.
Premiere September 20
Further performances: September 24, 26 and 28, October 4, 9, 12 and 16, November 15, December 4, 18 and 28, 2025
