Sunday Classics special: Remembering Margaret Price, Part 6 -- as Richard Strauss's Ariadne

Ernest Stern's drawing for the set for the island of Naxos for the original 1912 production of Ariadne auf Naxos -- you can even click on it to enlarge it!

by Ken

We've dabbled at Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal's Ariadne auf Naxos before, usually from the vantage point of the characters they created for the Prologue they added to the original opera seria-plus-commedia dell'arte burlesque (which was originally nestled inside the playwright's adaptation of Molière's Le bourgeois gentilhomme, with incidental music by the composer), to create a stand-along opera. Today, as part of our series remembering soprano Margaret Price, we home in on Ariadne herself.

It's an important role for the evolution of Price's voice and repertory, because while it has been taken by lyric-weight sopranos like Lisa della Casa and Gundula Janowitz, it's generally associated with heavier-weight voice types, like Leonie Rysanek and Jessye Norman. As we heard in Price's earlier recordings, there were always indication of some size to the voice, and it seems to have been a natural enough evolution for the voice to fill out (and at the same time lose some of that formerly dazzling flexibility).

In this connection it would have been logical to return -- as I suggested we might -- to Price's recording of Wagner's Isolde (we heard the Liebestod in Part 1; see the listing below), the closest she came to singing this fearsome role. But I'm afraid I underestimated the logistics involved in preparing the Ariadne portion of this post. We still have a lot of unfinished business in our remembrance of Price, so we'll just have to add the return to Tristan to our "to do" list.


The commedia dell'arte players (baritone Stephen Dickson as Harlekin, tenor Anthony Laciura as Brighella, bass Artur Korn as Truffaldin, tenor Allan Glassman as Scaramuccio) and Zerbinetta (soprano Kathleen Battle -- the clip takes us through the beginning of her great showpiece aria) attempt to console Ariadne (soprano Jessye Norman), at the Met in 1988, James Levine conducting.


FOR OUR SAMPLING OF MARGARET
PRICE'S ARIADNE, CLICK HERE

REMEMBERING MARGARET PRICE: the series so far

Career beginnings (plus the Act I Love Duet from Verdi's Otello)

Part 1: From Handel's Messiah to Wagner's Tristan, emerging in Mozart

Part 2: The Countess in Mozart's Marriage of Figaro (plus "Or sai chi l'onore" from Don Giovanni)

Part 3: Fiordiligi in Mozart's Così fan tutte
[Plus postscript: more of "Soave sia il vento" in the later post Sunday, Bloody Sunday and the depths of Mozart's humanity]

Part 4: Pamina in Mozart's Magic Flute

Part 5: Agathe in Weber's Der Freischütz

Part 6 (today): Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos

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