Every opera fanatic has their own favorite Richard Strauss opera. Most choose
Salome or
Elektra, both short and intense, while others prefer
Der Rosenkavalier or
Die Fau Ohne Schatten, both long and sprawling, with all four of them employing a humungous orchestra. My personal favorite is his 1912
Ariadne auf Naxos with its two-and-a-half hour running time and a 36-piece chamber orchestra. Unfortunately, the opera has not been performed in San Francisco for 24 years, so it's been a long stretch to hear it live. Fortunately, the Merola Opera program got everything right with their production on Thursday evening, and I fell deeply in love with the work all over again.
What Merola did right, first of all, was put up the money to staff the full orchestra of 36 players that the score calls for, including a celeste, a harmonium, and TWO harps. Under the direction of the young German conductor Ann-Katrin Stöcker, the complex, witty, quicksilver score was completely transparent, and sitting almost in the lap of the orchestra in the smallish auditorium was pure musical heaven. They sounded gorgeous throughout.
The plot of the opera is simple. A billionaire is hosting a lavish evening at his estate and has paid for a serious operatic premiere along with a saucy show featuring Zerbinetta and Her Four Lovers. The 45-minute Prologue is a backstage comedy, with the high art opera people and the low art commedia dell'arte people clashing while last minute theatrical emergencies are popping up all around them. The Prologue is usually a German comedy slog, but the Merola ensemble directed by Omer Ben Seadia actually made me laugh for the first time. There were two comic standouts. First, tenor Ryan Bryce Johnson as The Choreographer (moustache and unruly curls above) brought a hang-loose in the middle of chaos vibe that was specific and hilarious. Second, stage director Claire Choquette (purple pantsuit) performed the spoken part of the Billionaire's Chief of Staff with a deadpan crispness that got funnier every time she would deliver some variation of "Yes, you can have an opinion, but if you want to pay your rent, you'll do exactly what you've been paid to do."
(All production photos are by Kristen Loken.)
When the offstage fancy dinner runs late, the Chief of Staff announces that both serious opera and sexy divertissement will have to be performed at the same time because the fireworks have to start at nine. "Figure it out amongst yourselves," they announce. The Composer, beautifully sung by mezzo-soprano Theo Claveles (purple suit), has a nervous artiste breakdown, and is consoled by both the Music Director, sympathetically sung by Enes Pektas, and Zerbinetta the seductive charmer, in a spectacular performance by soprano Emilie Kealani. What ensues after intermission is the insane combo.
The serious opera begins, depicting the mythological Ariadne longing for Death after she has been abandoned by Theseus on the island of Naxos. She is joined by three nymphs performed by Jennifer Robinson as Naiad, Katherine Dobbs as Dryad, and Abigail Raiford as Echo. Some of Strauss's most sublime music is given to this trio, and the three sopranos did it justice.
I was apprehensive about this production with aspiring young professionals because this opera requires two world-class sopranos to tackle the incredibly difficult arias written for both Ariadne and Zerbinetta. I have heard enough young singers over the years making valiant, misguided attempts at climbing these particular aria Everests before falling, so I was prepared to be indulgent. What I was not prepared for was the sheer magnificence of soprano Adia Evans, whose voice was solid from the deepest contralto to the highest reaches. It felt very much like a star is born moment.
Soprano Emilie Kealani was similarly astonishing as Zerbinetta. The funniest part of the opera is hearing the deeply despairing laments of Ariadne immediately followed by Zerbinetta and her lovers telling Ariadne to just get over it. Zerbinetta's outrageously challenging aria
Großmächtige Prinzessin, is as difficult and high-flying as the Queen of Night's big number in
The Magic Flute, except it's twelve minutes long. Kealani nailed every note and was an athletic delight besides.
Zerbinetta turns out to be correct in her advice because the god Bacchus arrives on a ship, having narrowly escaped the clutches of Circe on a nearby island, and immediately falls in love with Ariadne. Tenor Matthew Sink did a fine job in a nearly impossible role where he has to sing full-blast for the last fifteen minutes of the opera with no warm-up.
Much speculation about the meaning of this opera tends to focus on high art versus low art, but the real conflict is between Germanic music and Italian music, which Strauss combines and contrasts ingeniously throughout the entire marvelous score.
The two-performance run, by the way, is sold out which feels tragic. Let's hope another 24 years doesn't go by before San Francisco sees another performance.
