Ariadne auf Naxos, Glyndebourne Festival Opera

The Prologue. A fun filled act with snippets of the melodies to come. Music Master (Thomas Allen) busied himself with everyone else. Angela Brower's Composer was urgent and torn.

The Opera. While Erin Morley (Zerbinetta) delivered some fine vocal pyrotechnic, it was Lise Davidsen (Ariadne) who was the true star of the act. Her soaring and penetrating soprano lines were Wagnerian in quality, and we were in no doubt of her torments and doubts. Sadly, AJ Glueckert's Bacchus was completely out-sung by Davidsen toward the end (at least he kept his voice, unlike the first night of this production a couple of years back when the tenor barely made it to the end).

Conductor Cornelius Meister took everything at a pretty brisk pace, he also let the somewhat decadent side of the music emerge. The LPO played everything beautifully.

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