Oper

Richard Strauss

Ariadne 

auf Naxos

Oper in einem Akt nebst einem Vorspiel

Text Hugo von Hofmannsthal

Tuesday 28. January 2025 19:00 – 21:30 One intermission Main Stage
Area 1 255 €
Area 1

255 €

Area 2 209 €
Area 2

209 €

Area 3 180 €
Area 3

180 €

Area 4 122 €
Area 4

122 €

Area 5 94 €
Area 5

94 €

Area 6 69 €
Area 6

69 €

Area 7 45 €
Area 7

45 €

Area 8 30 €
Area 8

30 €

Area 9 18 €
Area 9

18 €

Standing room
Standing room

Subscription 1

Ticket information

Season 2024/2025

Choose a day of the week and your favorite seats and enjoy five performances in one season.

The following performances are included in this subscription:
 

10. September 2024: CARMEN
08. October 2024: BALLET: SCHWANENSEE
28. January 2025: ARIADNE AUF NAXOS
27. May 2025: IL TROVATORE
17. June 2025: DER ROSENKAVALIER
 


Cast at
28. January 2025

Der Haushofmeister

Bernhard Schir

Ein Musiklehrer

Der Komponist

Der Tenor (Bacchus)

Zerbinetta

Die Primadonna (Ariadne)

Musikalische Leitung

Inszenierung

Sven-Eric Bechtolf

Bühne

Rolf Glittenberg

Kostüme

Marianne Glittenberg

Licht

Jürgen Hoffmann

3 more dates

Ariadne  auf Naxos

Cast at Tuesday 21. January 2025

Der Haushofmeister

Bernhard Schir

Ein Musiklehrer

Der Komponist

Der Tenor (Bacchus)

Ein Tanzmeister

Zerbinetta

Die Primadonna (Ariadne)

Brighella

Musikalische Leitung

Inszenierung

Sven-Eric Bechtolf

Bühne

Rolf Glittenberg

Kostüme

Marianne Glittenberg

Licht

Jürgen Hoffmann
Area 1 255 €
Area 1

255 €

Area 2 209 €
Area 2

209 €

Area 3 180 €
Area 3

180 €

Area 4 122 €
Area 4

122 €

Area 5 94 €
Area 5

94 €

Area 6 69 €
Area 6

69 €

Area 7 45 €
Area 7

45 €

Area 8 30 €
Area 8

30 €

Area 9 18 €
Area 9

18 €

Standing room
Standing room

Ariadne  auf Naxos

Cast at Saturday 25. January 2025

Der Haushofmeister

Bernhard Schir

Ein Musiklehrer

Der Komponist

Der Tenor (Bacchus)

Ein Tanzmeister

Zerbinetta

Die Primadonna (Ariadne)

Brighella

Musikalische Leitung

Inszenierung

Sven-Eric Bechtolf

Bühne

Rolf Glittenberg

Kostüme

Marianne Glittenberg

Licht

Jürgen Hoffmann
Area 1 255 €
Area 1

255 €

Area 2 209 €
Area 2

209 €

Area 3 180 €
Area 3

180 €

Area 4 122 €
Area 4

122 €

Area 5 94 €
Area 5

94 €

Area 6 69 €
Area 6

69 €

Area 7 45 €
Area 7

45 €

Area 8 30 €
Area 8

30 €

Area 9 18 €
Area 9

18 €

Standing room
Standing room

U27  
Ariadne  auf Naxos

Cast at Friday 31. January 2025

Der Haushofmeister

Bernhard Schir

Ein Musiklehrer

Der Komponist

Der Tenor (Bacchus)

Ein Tanzmeister

Zerbinetta

Die Primadonna (Ariadne)

Brighella

Musikalische Leitung

Inszenierung

Sven-Eric Bechtolf

Bühne

Rolf Glittenberg

Kostüme

Marianne Glittenberg

Licht

Jürgen Hoffmann
Area 1 255 €
Area 1

255 €

Area 2 209 €
Area 2

209 €

Area 3 180 €
Area 3

180 €

Area 4 122 €
Area 4

122 €

Area 5 94 €
Area 5

94 €

Area 6 69 €
Area 6

69 €

Area 7 45 €
Area 7

45 €

Area 8 30 €
Area 8

30 €

Area 9 18 €
Area 9

18 €

Standing room
Standing room

Included in: Cycle »Strauss«
Cycle »Strauss«

Short Summary

When the planned performance of his opera seria Ariadne auf Naxos in the palace of a Viennese nouveau riche is combined with the dance masquerade of an Italian comedy troupe, the young composer is initially in despair.

it is mainly thanks to the dancer Zerbinetta that he agrees. In the opera itself, we meet Ariadne, abandoned and desperate. Only the god Bacchus succeeds in bringing her back to life. In the mystical union of the two, there is still room for Zerbinetta's mockery: »Come the new god gone, devoted we are mute!«

Ariadne 

auf Naxos

Storyline

The servants of the richest man in Vienna are busy setting the stage for a planned performance in their master's palace. Behind the scenes, the two hired troupes are making their preparations:

One is to perform the first work of a young composer, the opera Ariadne auf Naxos, the other a dance masquerade in the Italian buffo style. Even the mutual jealousy between the members of the two troupes causes emotions to run high.

How much more so when the host, represented by his steward, announces an unexpected and unbelievable change to the program: At his request, the two stage plays are not to be presented to the invited guests one after the other, but simultaneously.

Deeply affected, the composer, who is concerned with the true realization of his artistic world view, wants to withdraw his creation and forgo his first public performance. But the practice-oriented music teacher and, above all, Zerbinetta, who is well versed in all the arts of seduction and knows how to trick the inexperienced young composer in no time at all, bring about a change of heart in him: with an emphatic hymn to the essence of music, the composer bows to reality and the instructions of his patron. The opera Ariadne auf Naxos is thus performed in the desired form, with interludes by an Italian comedy troupe.

Ariadne is waiting to die in front of a cave on the shores of the island of Naxos, having been abandoned by Theseus, her lover.

and so she no longer hears or pays attention to anything around her: not to the three nymphs, not to the comedians who want to cheer her up, not even to Zerbinetta, who in a breakneck aria advises the mourners from her rich experience not to shed a tear for the departed and to be open to a new love.

A radiant youth approaches from afar, Bacchus, the god of eternal renewal. He comes from the arms of the sorceress Circe, with whom he could not find what he was looking for. Ariadne, mistaking him for the messenger of death, goes to meet him and, without immediately realizing it, immediately burns with ecstatic devotion, which is reciprocated by the god. Transformed by the other and as if newly created, Ariadne and Bacchus can conclude the opera as a just-too-mystically united couple.

PROLOGUE 40 min
Intermission 30 min
Opera 85 min

»Ariadne is about more than grieving widows or the abandoned. It is about transformation, about the dissolution of rigidities in art and in personal life. I believe that the opera has a hero and a heroine, a protagonist and an antagonist: the composer and Zerbinetta; and in the course of the plot, of course, you also grow fond of Ariadne. But regardless of the lack or lack of identification figures, the opera is a bit of a construct that has been through the editing mill too often and is not fully balanced dramaturgically. The prelude and the opera are not consistently interwoven, and one could rightly ask: »What is this actually about?«. As an audience member, you are lured onto the wrong track, believing that there will be chaos on stage in the second part when the two elements »opera seria« and »opera buffa« collide. But it doesn't really come to that,« says director Sven-Eric Bechtolf

In terms of opera history, Ariadne auf Naxos belongs to a genre that is usually referred to today as »meta-opera«. These are operas about operas, i.e. operas whose subject and genre is opera itself and the conventions of the work's creation. As a rule, these are satires such as L'opera seria (1769) by Leopold Gassmann. The text of such operas pokes fun at the usual practices of the opera business and its effects on the opera, exaggerating them to the point of grotesqueness in order to achieve comic effects. The composers proceed in the same way with the usual stylistic elements of opera seria and their performance practice by the singers. Strauss could not follow such a pattern for two reasons. Firstly, Hofmannstahl's text was so artificial that drastic musical comedy would have contradicted the text. And secondly, Strauss' penchant for subtle irony stood in the way of the merely bold use of satirical stylistic quotations. (Michael Walter)

In Greek mythology, Ariadne was the daughter of the Cretan king Minos (a son of Zeus) and Pasiphaë, herself the daughter of the sun god Helios. When the hero Theseus set out to kill the man-eating Minotaur, who lived in a labyrinth on Crete, Ariadne, Minotaur's half-sister, fell in love with him. She helped Theseus by giving him a thread, which he used to find his way out of the labyrinth after killing the Minotaur. Together with Theseus, Ariadne fled from Crete to Athens, but was left alone on the island of Naxos in her sleep - and despaired. There she was found by the god of fertility, Dionysus (Bacchus), a son of Zeus. Dionysus fell in love with Ariadne on Naxos and married her; as his wife, Ariadne gave birth to four sons. (From the 8th book of Ovid's Metamorphoses)

© Wiener Staatsoper
© Wiener Staatsoper
© Wiener Staatsoper
© Wiener Staatsoper
© Wiener Staatsoper
© Wiener Staatsoper
© Wiener Staatsoper

This is a co-production with the Salzburger Festspiele.

FAQ

Tickets for our standing room can be purchased online or at the Bundestheater box office from 10 am on the day of the performance. BundestheaterCard holders can book standing room tickets online the day before the performance.

In addition, a fixed contingent of standing room tickets is available for regular evening performances from 80 minutes before the start of the performance at our standing room box office (Operngasse entrance).

Our operas are sung in the original languages - these vary depending on the work.

At each seat, subtitles in different languages can be switched on or off via a separate subtitle screen. In addition to the original language of the opera, you can choose from up to eight languages: German, English, Italian, French, Russian, Japanese, Spanish, Chinese (Mandarin).

In the event of a change of performance, you can of course return or exchange your tickets.

As changes to the cast cannot be ruled out due to illnesses or other hindrances of artists, there is no entitlement to a refund of the ticket price or exchange in this case.

Tickets cannot be returned or exchanged if you are not admitted to the auditorium due to being late (even after the interval).

About Your Visit

Cloakroom

The cloakrooms are located next the the entrances at the Operngasse. You can find additional cloakrooms on the left and right side of the balcony and the gallery and in the boxes. All cloakrooms are free of charge.

Be on Time

We kindly ask you to arrive on time for the performances. Latecomers can only be admitted during the intermission. After the intermission, re-entry will not be possible.

Food and Drink

Our gastronomy opens at the same time entry is permitted. You can enjoy some snacks and drinks before the performance starts or you can book a table for the break.

Practical Information

You can find more practical information regarding your visit (e.g. Dresscode, barrier-free-access, …) here.

 

Discounts, Subscriptions, Cycles

Discounts

The Vienna State Opera offers the following discounts:

  • Under 27
  • Children- & Youth-Tickets
  • BundestheaterCard
  • Ballett-Bonus
  • Ö1-Club
  • Culture Pass »Hunger auf Kunst und Kultur«
  • Disability ID
More info

Subscriptions

Choose a week-day and your favorite seat and enjoy five performances.

  • 4x Opera, 1x Ballet
  • spread out over the whole season
  • up to 30 % discount compared to the regular ticket price
More info

Cycles

Buy multiple performances as a package!

  • big selection of different cycles
  • bundled together by composers, artists or topics
  • spread out over the whole season
  • up to 10 % discount compared to the regular ticket price
More info