Ariadne auf Naxos (review)

Ariadne auf Naxos returned to the Salzburg Festival in 1954 after a lapse of twenty-eight years. Since then it has become, after Der Rosenkavalier, the most frequently performed Strauss opera at the festival. Recordings from three productions—1954, 1964, and 1979—have been released on CD or LP, and a fourth (1965) on video. The presence of Anna Tomowa-Sintow, Edita Gruberova, and James King fails to justify the release of this performance. The 1982 Ariadne finds none of those singers in optimum voice, but it does commemorate Trudeliese Schmidt's sterling Komponist and Wolfgang Sawallisch's magisterial conducting.

The German maestro's recordings of Elektra, Die Frau ohne Schatten, Intermezzo, Arabella, Friedenstag, and Capriccio claim honored places in the Strauss discography. This Salzburg Ariadne joins the list. Replacing Karl Böhm on the podium for the 1981 performances, Sawallisch left his artistic imprint on an opera Böhm claimed as his personal property in Vienna, Salzburg, and New York. In this 1982 performance, Sawallisch's command of Strauss's music is evident from the opening measures of the Vorspiel. Guiding the Vienna Philharmonic with a firm but pliant hand, he shapes a genial, warm-toned account of the score. In the overture to the opera proper, he draws luminous playing from the ensemble as he weaves the various musical strands into a gorgeous web of sound. Finding convincing tempos, he propels the music to one superbly controlled climax after another. How odd, then, that Sawallisch never conducted another opera performance at the Salzburg Festival. Perhaps his duties as the music director for the competing festival in Munich precluded his further participation.

Schmidt had claimed the Komponist in the 1979 new production. Her firm-toned mezzo opens up with power and shine on the high As and B-flats but also, when called for, softens to produce a lovely flow of refined sound. At once ardent and impetuous, she crafts an outstanding interpretation, worthy to join such elite Salzburg Composers as Sena Jurinac, Irmgard Seefried, and Christa Ludwig.

Aside from Sawallisch and Schmidt, there is not much to praise in this otherwise perfunctory revival. Edita Gruberova earns a long ovation—even the orchestra in the pit joins in—for her "Grossmächtige Prinzessin," but the recording finds the soprano—undeniably an important Zerbinetta—in less than ideal form. Gruberova sounds like a cold and calculating flirt. Her brittle tone and uningratiating manner—she pecks at notes rather than binding them into legato phrases—prove off-putting. So do her swooping attacks and sudden crescendos on high notes. Gruberova tends to attack those notes softly and then suddenly expand them to piercing blasts. A wayward trill, a casual execution of some florid passages, and a lack of a smile in the tone make this Zerbinetta the least successful of Gruberova's four interpretations released on CD and LP.

Anna Tomowa-Sintow unleashes a stream of silvery sound in the long duet with Bacchus. Before that, her voice sounds unsettled—the vibrato quavers unevenly. Tonal impurities mar the opening of Ariadne's lament. So does a weak lower middle voice. At "Hermes heissen sie ihn," Tomowa-Sintow tries to loft a soft high B-flat, but the tone fails to float and spin. Once warmed up, her soprano takes on more luster. She makes a lovely impression in "Es ist der schöne, stille Gott!" and rides the orchestra in the soaring final phrases of "Es gibt ein Reich."

James King, the reigning Bacchus for two decades and more, sounds properly pompous and self-admiring in the Tenor's brief outbursts in the prologue. In the opera that follows, one marvels at his ability to sustain the testing music Strauss asks Bacchus to sing. Once past a strained high A during his offstage entrance, King sings with admirable control. The voice may sound a bit harder than in its prime, but it remains a powerful instrument. He trumpets out the alternate high B-flats and lavishes his muscular tone on Bacchus's long vocal lines. Toward the end, however, he tires. The high notes do not...