The Finnish National Opera creates more and more often operas together with other opera houses. Their latest opera (“Ariadne auf Naxos” by Richard Strauss) from the Aix-en-Provence festival is actually produced together with four other opera houses (Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, The Royal Danish Opera, Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg and Gran Teatre del Liceu).
The story line of this opera is quite a mess. The richest man of Vienna has ordered an opera group to perform for him and another group to play a farce. When the schedule bursts, he decides that both the performances must be played at the same time and only cover the time frame of one performance. This means that the Ariadne of the opera seria pines on a deserted island after her lover, who left her and the second group of performers try to desperately cheer her up in the style of opera buffa. In the original story Ariadne kind of finds a new man, but in this version Ariadne gives birth to a child and motherhood fills her life.
I have never really liked the story of ”Ariadne auf Naxos”, since in my opinion it is garbled and weird. That is why I did not 100 % love this version either, though it probably was an excellent version of this particular opera.
The director of the opera was Katie Mitchell and she had made the performance – could I say plentiful. There were dozens of things going on at the same time on the stage and you simply didn’t have any chance to follow everything, which was in a way a pity; I am sure that I missed a lot of fine details even though I tried to absorb as much as possible. I really liked the settings (Chloe Lamford), which were clear cut, and the costumes (Sarah Blenkinsop), which fitted this production perfectly.
The soloists of the evening were worth all the praise they have got. I especially admired the female singers (though, I don’t want to dismiss the males in any way). Miina-Liisa Värelä as Ariadne got a lot of positive publicity already before the first night and she was worth all of it. Her full-bodied voice suited the role and I sincerely hope that this was only the beginning of a flood of good visits to the Finnish National Opera. Jenny Carlstedt as the Composer dominated the first part of the opera. At least to my ears her voice got some totally new tones in this role and I almost asked myself if this really is Carlstedt. The third female lead (Zerbinetta) was extremely interesting. In the beginning I was disappointed with Danae Kontora. Her voice did not sound at all good, but when we got to her big scenes, it was as if there was another woman on the stage. You almost got an impression that switching on the lamps in her dress, she also switched on another gear in her voice. Absolutely impressive music and unbelievably beautiful high notes.
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