Today I went to the final dress of Ariadne auf Naxos, the 1917 (or thereabouts) opera by Richard Strauss (libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal).
The opera takes place in 18th-century Vienna at the house of a wealthy Viennese.
The first part of the opera, called 'The Prologue' takes place in what is effectively the 'backstage' of the house, where two different companies of performers are slated to entertain the Viennese and his guests.
One is an opera company, which plans to perform a very serious interpretation of the Ariadne legend, in which Ariadne, abandoned by her lover Theseus on an island, awaits her death. The other company is a comedy troupe, filled with clowns and acrobats and puppets and led by a very pert and saucy vixen named Zerbinetta.
After some controversy about who will perform and for how long, it is eventually decreed that BOTH companies will perform at the same time. It's a hilarious set-up and one that resonates very much in the post-modern spirit of 'meta' to the extent that Ariadne is really an opera about the opera, and all of the (at times farcical even when well-intentioned) compromises made in the spirit of getting it produced. There were many times watching when I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry or (more often) a little of both. It's kind of like the 'Spinal Tap' of opera, for all you rockers, and I was also reminded of Godard's 'Contempt' and (especially) Truffaut's 'La Nuit Americaine' (both movies about making movies) and any number of other great ruminations on the comedy and tragedy of making art.
At the intermission, I walked around the opera house and admired some of the mementos from earlier eras of the Met.
There is an impressive wall of portraits dating -- as far as I could tell -- from no particular era, as if everyone in the past is an equal.
This is a picture of the old Met on Broadway, looking north toward Times Square (I think), dating from the 1880s.
Here is a Brunnhilde who took part in a photo shoot in Central Park, something that I'm fairly certain is no longer part of the Met's standard operating procedure in the modern era.
As I walked around, I though about something Stephen had mentioned the previous night (after reading it in a blog) about how classical music records only need to sell a few hundred copies to be considered 'best sellers.' It made me wonder how long an institution like the Met could survive, and how the opera would look in ___ years.
But with its future intact for at least a few more hours, I returned for the second act, i.e., 'The Opera,' which manages to walk a miraculously fine line between the comic and the sincere, somehow managing both without ever denigrating either. The sets and costumes were surreal and beautiful (the three nymphs in particular, on rolling stilts in long pastel dresses) and both of the leads sounded (and looked!) great.
In the end, Ariadne -- despite longing for death -- is rescued by Bacchus, a young god who after proclaiming her beauty leads her through a swirl of colors to the heavens, as Zerbinetta, ever the coquette, steps around the curtain to proclaim: 'When a new god comes along, we're dumbstruck!'
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