The Guardian (Free subscription) | 21/11/2009
Swedish soprano whose perceptive singing and vivid acting made her a great heroine in operas by Tchaikovsky, Richard Strauss and Janacek One of the most perceptive and admired sopranos of the postwar era, Elisabeth Söderström, who has died aged 82, had a lengthy career that carried on into the 1990s, when she was well into her 60s. In everything she attempted, her vibrantly beautiful singing...
DCist (Free subscription) | 31/10/2009
(L to R) Iréne Theorin (Ariadne), Lyubov Petrova (Zerbinetta), Nathan Herfindahl, Corey Evan Rotz, Greg Fedderly, and Grigory Soloviov, in Ariadne auf Naxos, Washington National Opera (photo by Karin Cooper -- see more pictures ) Washington National Opera's new production of Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos puts me in a bit of a quandary. It has a score and libretto of particular beauty...
Ionarts (Free subscription) | 30/10/2009
(L to R) Iréne Theorin as Ariadne, Lyubov Petrova as Zerbinetta, with Nathan Herfindahl, Corey Evan Rotz, Greg Fedderly, and Grigory Soloviov, in Ariadne auf Naxos, Washington National Opera (photo by Karin Cooper)Let's face it: we will take just about any chance we can to hear and see Richard Strauss's operas. Ariadne auf Naxos, one of the odder and more beautiful of them, has been under review...
The Washington Times (Free subscription) | 26/10/2009
The Washington National Opera's production of Richard Strauss' "Ariadne auf Naxos" is simply fabulous. Brilliantly performed and sung and sharply directed, Saturday's opening-night performance brought good humor and artistic coherence to a work whose ultimate aim eluded even the composer and his librettist. The initial 1912 version of "Ariadne," composed as a hybrid evening of music...
Clef Notes (Free subscription) | 25/10/2009
The celebrity quotient was pretty impressive onstage at the Washington National Opera's Saturday for the opening night performance of Strauss' "Ariadne auf Naxos." In this production, directed by Chis Alexander, the setting for the opera-within-an-opera portion of "Ariadne" is a contemporary...
The Classical Beat (Free subscription) | 23/10/2009
The Washington National Opera has produced a little YouTube video with snippets of the Chris Alexander production (originated in Seattle) of Strauss's "Ariadne auf Naxos" that's opening on Saturday night. Just for the sake of contrast, here's a similar preview of a production by Robert Carsen that opened in Munich last year and went on to Berlin. Thoughts on Ariadne? Reactions to the WNO...
Clef Notes (Free subscription) | 01/10/2009
Cool. Washington National Opera is participating in the nationwide "Free Night of Theater 2009" project, offering gratis tickets to its production of a fab work by Strauss, "Ariadne auf Naxos." Five performances, between Oct. 28 and Nov. 13, are included...
the concert (Free subscription) | 30/09/2009
Before we headed out to Aida last night, I realized that I was going to be adding a new opera to my “list” of works I’ve seen. I’d never actually written them all down, though, so this morning I’ve been going through my memory (and opera company archive websites), and I think I’ve come up with most of them: 67! Not bad, I think. Do any of you do this? Maury ? JSU...
Prima la musica, poi le parole (Free subscription) | 27/07/2009
In the midst of half a dozen (or half a million, so it seemed) other performances last week, I made the fleetingest of visits to Melbourne for opening night of Victorian Opera's Ariadne auf Naxos. Richard Strauss alone is temptation...
The Independent (Free subscription) | 29/03/2009
Rereleased minus the libretto and translation, Giuseppe Sinopoli's nine-year-old recording with the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden remains one of the most luxurious Ariadne s available. Leading the cast is Deborah Voigt's Prima Donna/Ariadne, a performance that shows her voice at its pre-op finest. Anne Sofie von Otter's ardent Composer, Stephan Genz's fleet-footed Harlekin and Natalie Dessay's...
Right Wing Nation (Free subscription) | 18/02/2009
Jessye Norman, “Es gibt ein Reich” from R. Strauss, Ariadne auf Naxos, 1988 at the Met.
Baltimore Sun (Free subscription) | 19/08/2008
Opera within an opera ends Wolf Trap season If the Three Stooges stumbled into an oh-so-serious performance of Hamlet and carried on as usual alongside the uncomprehending actors, the result would be something akin to Ariadne auf Naxos , the musically and theatrically brilliant work by Richard Strauss that serves as an invigorating finale to Wolf Trap Opera's season.
Opera Today (Free subscription) | 18/08/2008
T.L. Ponick [Washington Times, 18 August 2008] With shabby-chic sets by Erhard Rom, witty direction by Thaddeus Strassberger and sharp conducting by Timothy Long, the Wolf Trap Opera Company's wacky new production of Richard Strauss' "Ariadne auf Naxos" ("Ariadne on Naxos") is an engaging, theatrically over-the-top showcase for the company's incredibly talented young singers.
Washington Post (Free subscription) | 18/08/2008
The Wolf Trap Opera Company's final staged offering of the season -- Richard Strauss's curious opera-within-an-opera "Ariadne auf Naxos" -- is a near-triumph. The company's remarkable young artists presented a vocal feast at Friday's opening at the Barns.
Civic Center (Free subscription) | 17/08/2008
The title for these trio of musings on death, "Totenreich," is taken from an aria in my favorite Richard Strauss opera, "Ariadne auf Naxos." The main action is an opera-within-an-opera about Ariadne being abandoned on the island of Naxos by her lover Theseus, where she sings gorgeously and gloomily in German about how she longs for death. "Es gibt ein Reich, wo alles rein ist:/Es...
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