Review of Ariadne auf Naxos – Laurent Pelly’s style has a lot of wit but no weight | Opera

GLyndebourne’s new productions this summer have followed a theme: first Toscaabout a fictional theater singer; that’s it Orpheusabout the legendary musician. Now comes Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos – an opera about theatre. It begins with backstage shenanigans as two teams – one high-skilled, one low-skilled – plan an after-dinner entertainment for their wealthy patron, then the routines they follow as they are forced to combine their activities. The real story is, of course, love – and this is only partially apparent Laurent Pellymaking.

The first episode finds Pelly at his wits end. We are in the house of a very rich man in Vienna, whose taste is immediately questioned; Massimo Troncanetti’s place has a large wooden door, made of wood that contrasts with a 20th-century chandelier. William Relton’s Major-Domo is awe-inspiring everywhere, tying even Michael Kraus who sang the song Music Master; Ru Charlesworth Dancing Master’s smoke is walking around dressed as a Silk Cut ad. Samantha Hankey, her soft but sparkling mezzo-soprano, plays the Singer as a self-proclaimed genius; Zerbinetta, the comic’s leading lady, wears stockings and suspenders. Interestingly, Robin Ticciati, the players of the London Philharmonic, reduced in number as Strauss said, enjoy the characters’ great hopes and small tragedies, and Pelly plays the stereotypes wonderfully, hitting the marks without sending things.

But this is an opera of two parts. Having been told, more than once, that the dinner guests will find a combination of healthy food and great opera that induces sleep, it is disappointing to find, after the picnic, that Pelly’s performance in the second half is less and less intelligent than the first. Ariadne and the rest have to climb to the top of the world’s biggest pile of jokes, and in the evening it’s hard to see what effect each person’s words have on everyone else.

Alina Wunderlin and his characteristically beautiful appearance in Zerbinetta’s voice, throwing big notes and little waves to the audience with ease, but his famous role with Mikhail Timoshenko’s Harlequin is not so much. He and his teammates are still puppets, and we don’t see behind the paint. As the Prima Donna who sings Ariadne, Rachel Willis-Sørensen has a high voice but never shows the vulnerable woman underneath, whether it’s through her solemn voice or the music with David Butt Philip who played Bacchus powerfully.

We get to see the Singer confirmed, watching Ariadne’s movements in the dark behind him – and maybe he’ll be happy with “his” music, played proudly as it is here. But have some of these characters been changed by their experiences? Apparently not, and that leaves this Ariadne interesting but unsettled.