Astoria Music Festival Presents "Ariadne" For Strauss 150th

Marie Plette will sing the title role of Ariadne.

2014 marks the 150th birthday of Richard Strauss. Festivals and opera houses around the world have celebrated this special anniversary. Now the Northwest brings one of his most famous operas to life for the Astoria Music Festival. "Not heard in Oregon for nearly fifty years, Strauss’s operatic mash-up juxtaposes high-minded opera with ribald comedy. The richest man in Vienna has invited you to a party, for which he’s commissioned a new opera – a tragedy of the jilted Ariadne – and a comic farce, The Fickle Zerbinetta and her Four Lovers, but dinner’s running late, so we’ll save time and present them simultaneously, resulting in some of history’s most glorious music, brilliant coloratura, arching melodies, and a kaleidoscope of lush orchestral color." The cast for Ariadne auf Naxos includes Marie Plette (Ariadne), Maria Aleida (Zerbinetta), Angela Niederloh (Composer), Matthew Hayward (Harlequin), and Allan Glassman (Bacchus). [Source] Other opera stars that have already appeared at this year's Astoria Music Festival are Angela Meade, Richard Zeller, Amber Wagner, and Amy Hansen. The festival will conclude with a performance of Mozart's Cosí fan tutte. Get more information here.

Daniela Fally Sings Zerbinetta's "Großmächtige Prinzessin"

Young Singers Revive "Ariadne auf Naxos" at Lyric Opera

Amber Wagner as Ariadne with
Brandon Jovanovich as Bacchus

"Though this revival was planned well before his arrival in Chicago, Lyric’s new general director Anthony Freud’s worthy fingerprints were all about, too, from the ousting of the Ariadne/Prima Donna, the now problematic soprano Deborah Voigt, and her replacement with the remarkable rising star and Ryan Center alum Amber Wagner, to the breath-of-fresh-air supertitles by Colin Ure (Freud’s partner), to a more clearly (and honestly) marked cast list in the program. Music director Andrew Davis has long been what his fellow Britons call 'a Strauss man' and his expertise and natural breathing with this lush score made him a superb guide for Strauss’ streamlined 'court orchestra' of 37 players and for the very fine young cast. Fully convincing musically and dramatically, English mezzo Alice Coote made you wish the Composer’s role was not confined to the Prologue. Theatrically, Anna Christy’s Zerbinetta, the insightful comedienne who at first seems only a tart, was a perfect creation, and her connection to the score of her great aria was absolutely direct. As Bacchus, the tenor-god who rescues the forlornAriadne from her deserted island stranding, Brandon Jovanovich had great physical and intelligent presence. Having seen some top-drawer work from him at Lyric and as Siegmund in San Francisco Opera’s Ring, I’d guess that he was just having momentary difficulties opening night with the closing sections of a notoriously hard and high role." [Source]

Three Strauss Ladies Reviewed in HGO's "Ariadne"

"As The Prima Donna in the prologue and Ariadne in The Opera, Christine Goerke was confident and insistent, magnificent in every respect and clearly at the top of her game. Funny and dramatic, she seemed entirely natural in these roles, as if they had been written expressly for her. As well, her commanding voice was the only one that prevailed over a largely dominant orchestra. She has a powerful, fully resonant quality that would make her an ideal Wagnerian singer, and one can only imagine what her recent interpretation of Kundry in Parsifal at Turin’s Teatro Regio was like. I’d safely bet that it was incredible. Standing on her lonely rock and beckoning to what she believes is Hermes ready to escort her towards death, a spine-tingling moment, she was one of the most extraordinary artists on HGO’s stage this season."

"Just a month ago at Dallas Opera, Laura Claycomb gave an exacting, emotional performance as Gilda in Verdi’s popular Rigoletto. Her voice was rich and confident, clear in the high notes, her phrasing smooth and inventive. Thrilling to hear, she was also a very convincing actor, vulnerable and endearing as the hunchbacked jester’s beautiful daughter. This being the only other role I’ve seen her perform, however, it appears that she is much more attuned to Verdi’s flowing Italian than Strauss’ dense Austrian-flavored German. Her interpretation of Zerbinetta on Friday was largely unremarkable. It seemed she was protecting her voice in order to make it through the thing. Her high notes were raspy, sometimes thin. She struggled with the coloratura flourishes in the lengthy second-scene 'Opera' aria. She looked tired. This might have been unnoticeable if she had exuded more charisma. Zerbinetta is an 'all or nothing' role, and Claycomb stayed safely in the middle."

"In the prologue it is Zerbinetta, I believe, who refers to The Composer with contempt, saying, 'his endless top notes are irritating.' Funny when mentioned within the opera, unfortunately this was exactly the case with Susan Graham, who didn’t seem in good voice on Friday night. It was as if she couldn’t hear herself. She seemed even out of breath at times. Most of her top notes were distinctly sharp or flat, and vocally she wandered throughout the scene, giving us far too many sudden fortissimos. Strauss gave some of his most glorious phrases to this character, and I kept waiting for Graham to settle in and dazzle, but she didn’t. There is also the matter of her acting. Yes, The Composer has a stormy persona, but that doesn’t mean the part is one-dimensional. 'He' has to do more than stamp his foot time and again."

[Source]