ARIADNE AUF NAXOS by Richard Strauss, directed by Neil Armfield, conducted by Andrew Davis (Canadian Opera Company). At the Four Seasons Centre (145 Queen West). Runs to May 29. $12-$281. 416-363-8231. See listing Rating: NNNN
In Ariadne Auf Naxos, composer Richard Strauss has it both ways: he sends up classical opera and singers while writing one of the most luscious-sounding operas of the 20th century.
Happily, the Canadian Opera Company production delivers most of the comedy and the high notes.
The show begins backstage in a private theatre where a rich patron has commissioned both an opera and a commedia dell’arte production at the last minute, he demands that the two run simultaneously.
The prologue is largely comedy, Strauss and director Neil Armfield sending up divas of all sorts. The opera itself, much of it high-minded and richly scored, includes well-observed satire on romance and human pretentiousness.
Working with talented singing actors, Armfield captures the characters’ emotional depth while avoiding anything heavy-handed. We’re privy to their backstage intrigues, especially those involving the enchanting Zerbinetta (Jane Archibald), who seduces the Composer (the excellent Alice Coote) so cleverly that we’re not sure whether it’s an act or true infatuation.
The second half, the Ariadne story, is properly lush, notably in the person of Ariadne (Amber Wagner, stepping in for an ailing Adrianne Pieczonka), who carries over the character of the snobbish soprano from the prologue but sings with an impressively big, vibrant sound. Archibald shines, too, in her quicksilver aria, written in an intentionally different style from the formal opera’s soaring, romantic lines.
John Easterlin, Peter Barrett, Michael Uloth and Christopher Enns as the commedia actors are also fine. As Bacchus, the opera’s romantic hero, Richard Margison is sometimes taxed in his high notes but embodies Strauss’s Wagnerian-style hero, especially in his final duet with Ariadne.
Conductor Andrew Davis puts the cherry on this production by conducting a warm, sumptuous reading of the score, making this COC production musically and dramatically one of the season’s best.
