A giant gold frame surrounds the Met stage for Act II. Audience members who know their art history will undoubtedly make the reference to the famous painting by Titian.
My favorite Ariadne painting is a little less grand. I found it with my art students on a trip to the Philadelphia Museum of Art on a seek and find to discover as many references to greek myth as we could (I think the Percy Jackson books were popular at the time). With the support of a museum guide we spent a lot of time with this less famous Ariadne by the Artist Giorgio de Chirico that I feel captures the aching melancholy that only someone who has been abandoned by love can know.
We discovered that the museum is full of myths but for some reason Ariadne touched us the most. On the grand steps at the end of the day we gathered for one last group picture and I asked them to ‘strike a pose.’ One of the boys naturally positioned his hands like Ariadne and the rest followed all raising one arm to position their palm on their head and the other with the hands back palm to their cheek ; it was charming. One of my favorite school photos, my 28 Ariadnes.
Tonights Ariadne is the singular and incomperable Lise Davidsen who is quickly becoming the stuff of myth herself. There is something in her capacity to project with such power that is hard to imagine and there is a true excitement in watching her wrestle with controlling that power to master a full range of subtler sounds to both blow us away and also to massage more nuanced emotions.
I am already planning to hear her sing again because our rush tickets put us under the orchestra awning where the sound doesn’t carry the best. The next time I see her will be the best seats I’ve ever had in the Met.
The next Saturday a weather system called a bomb cyclone hits New York. The weather isn’t as bad as it sounds and hopefully will be the last weather event of the year. Monday it’s going up to 60.
I arrive during intermission to get standing tickets for Act 2, but it turns out they are not offering standing tickets for today’s performance. Chaltin has left by now to shop and my phone battery is dead so I linger hoping for divine intervention. I begin looking on the ground for a loss ticket to get me past the ushers, but the pavement is wet and empty for but reflections. I give up I walk in the direction of food, when at the light on Columbus Avenue I notice a couple beside me with playbills in their pocket. I don’t even finish asking when this youngish man with a European vibe of tangled blond curls and dressed very nice begins to reach into his inside pocket and casually pulls out two tickets. “We have somewhere to be, here take them. They’re pretty good seats too.” This is a herculean understatement. I run back to The Met knowing the chimes must be already ringing to return to the seats and that’s if I’m not already too late. I don’t actually look at the tickets until I’m inside the building.
Orchestra, front row!
It feels like everyone is singing to me. Up close I find the commedia de art team much more delightful than the first time around and Lise Davidsen sounds like a venerable goddess. I found Bachus to be much stronger this time around, but found their love to be a cold passion perhaps from this productions staging. The elements of opera bouy one another and here the libretto is at it’s best and most romantic when he sings, “I’d rather see all the stars perish and go out than have you die in my arms.” The performance is broadcast live today and I find it funny that their may be a lack of continuity when this attractive Eruopean couple is replaced with a skinny bald man.
The three singers who float tall on the stage were pure magic whilst trading off notes.
Uproarious Bravos follow.
I Leave the island of Naxos for a new reality where snow now sweeps the front of Liconln Center that 90 minutes earlier I searched in the rain for a lost ticket.
So What is Ariadne auf Naxos all about? It’s a battle between Tragedy and Comedy reminding me of the structure for A Love for Three Oranges. The first act has a lot of recitative laying out the plot that there will not be enough time to show both the tragedy and comedy before the fireworks celebration at the end of the party. The aristocrat tells all the actors they are going to have to combine the two shows into one. The second act is the resulting compromise between the two, a dramady based on the myth of Ariadne of Naxos. In act II Ariadne waiting to die after being jilted and left on an island byTheseus. The comedy performers talk her through her depression until Bacchus comes along to rescue her.
Notes on the production:
Composer ………………………………………Richard Strauss
Ariadne …………………………………………… Lise Davidsen
Zerbinetta ……………………………………… Brenda Rae
The Composer …………………………….. Isabel Leonard
Bachus …………………………………………… Brandon Jovanovich
Truffaldin ………………………………………. Ryan Speedo Green
Najade ……………………………………………. Deanna Breiwick
Dryade …………………………………………… Tamara Mumford
Echo ……………………………………………….. Maureen McKay
Harlekin …………………………………………. Sean Michael Plumb
Scaramuccio ………………………………… Alok Kumar
The music master………………………… Johannes Martin Kranzle
The Major-Demo …………………………. Wolfgang Brendel
Librettist …………………………………………. Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Conductor ………………………………………. Marek Janowski
Metropolitan Opera
3/5/22