• Richard Strauss. Oper in one act. 1912.
• Revised as an opera in a prologue and one act in 1916.
• Libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal.
• First performance of the first version, following Molière’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (Der Burger als Edelmann), at the Hoftheater, Stuttgart, on 25th October 1912.
• First performance of the second version at the Hofoper, Vienna, on 4th October 1916.

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CHARACTERS IN THE PROLOGUE

Major-domo	speaking part
Music-master	baritone
Composer	mezzo-soprano
Dancing-master	tenor
Wig-maker	bass
Footman	bass
Officer	tenor
Prima donna (later Ariadne)	soprano
Tenor (later Bacchus)	tenor

COMMEDIA DELL’ARTE PLAYERS OF THE INTERMEZZO

Zerbinetta	soprano
Harlequin	baritone
Scaramuccio	tenor
Truffaldino	bass
Brighella	tenor

CHARACTERS IN THE OPERA

Ariadne (see above)	soprano
Bacchus (see above)	tenor
Naiad	high soprano
Dryad	contralto
Echo	soprano

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The Prologue written for the second version of Ariadne auf Naxos is set in the house of a rich man, where preparations are being made for an evening entertainment. This is to allow the performance of a serious opera, a comic commedia dell’arte piece and fireworks. To save time, the patron has ordered the tragedy and comedy to be performed simultaneously. This distresses the composer, but his teacher, the music-master, advises compromise.

The opera starts, as it should, with Ariadne lamenting her fate, to the boredom of listening nymphs. The comedians, however, now intervene to console her, ignored by Ariadne, even when Zerbinetta interrupts. The comedians seek Zerbinetta’s favour. The approach of the god Bacchus (Dionysus) arouses Ariadne and the two sing ecstatically, against a starry heaven. Zerbinetta has her own comment to make on all this in the first version, followed then by the bourgeois gentleman, Monsieur Jourdain himself. In the second version, now usually followed, Bacchus and Ariadne have the last word.

Molière’s comedy Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme concerns the gulling of the unfortunate Monsieur Jourdain, who has little idea how to employ his newly acquired wealth. Ariadne auf Naxos was originally intended to follow a performance of the German translation of the comedy, for which Lully had provided the original music in 1670. Strauss and Hofmannsthal’s work provides a contrast between the comic and the tragic. The latter was originally treated ironically, but is more high-flown in the second version that now prevails, lacking, as it does, the deflation of Zerbinetta’s final comments and the reappearance of a bewildered Monsieur Jourdain.