Right Wing Nation

Like Wagner, Strauss is rarely done well–no, strike that. It’s easier to find a cast to sing Wagner than Richard Strauss, and the problem is the tenor. Strauss lovers usually have to content themselves with good sopranos and mezzos, and perhaps a good baritone, and resign themselves to a painfully bad tenor. Whereas there are tenors who sing Wagner well (at least for a couple of years, until the roles kill their voices), there are very few tenors who will even attempt Strauss. Some heldentenors, like Ben Heppner, will not sing Strauss because they want to go on singing Wagner.

Range is the lowest note to the highest note. Tessitura is where most of a role lies within that range. And Strauss’s tenor tessituras are murderously high. There are many tenors who can hit the notes, but very, very few who can sing nearly the whole role way, way up high. So when a tenor sings Strauss well, it’s something not to be only savored, but memorialized. And I have such a performance. Videos, so click the more tag to go on.

But first, a quick synopsis of Ariadne auf Naxos.

Ariadne auf Naxos is an opera with an opera, kind of, a drama and a comedy in one. The first act takes place in a nobleman’s home. The majordomo (the nobleman) is throwing a party and has hired both a composer and musicians to sing the compser’s opera and a comedy troop (headed by Zerbinetta) to entertain his guests. He decides, however, that he’s more interested in seeing fireworks, so he tells both the composer and Zerbinetta that they will perform together, and not separately.

The second act is the opera, into which the comedy troop intrudes. Ariadne, who helped Theseus kill her father’s minotaur, has been abandoned by him on the island of Naxos (hence, the name). Ariadne is very high strung and overly dramatic, and wants to die, and is accompanied by Naiad, Dryad, and Echo, as sort of a Greek chorus. Zerbinetta and the comedy troop keep trying to cheer her up, but she ignores them. The finale is when the God Bacchus appears on the island and falls in love with Ariadne, and she believes him to be the God of Death who will take her to the underworld. They have a long, and very beautiful, duet, and the curtain falls.

Bacchus is the tenor, and Ariadne, of course, is a soprano. Within living memory two tenors have been able to sing Bacchus: James King, who sang it acceptably but was noticeably strained, and Jess Thomas, who sang it like a god. Conducted by the great Karl Böhm, at the Kleines Festspielhaus in Salzburg, 21 August 1965 (try not to snicker at Thomas’s costume–it was 1965, after all). Count yourself fortunate if you ever hear another tenor sing Bacchus this well. In four parts (youtube has an annoying upload limit). Hildegard Hillebrecht sings Ariadne, and frankly, I’ve heard many sing this better (including Hildegard–she wasn’t having a good night), but the incomparable Reri Grist sings Zerbinetta, who sings in the last part of the finale (I’m going to upload her aria from this performance, because it’s remarkable to hear). If you don’t want to listen to the whole thing, start with part three (this is where a tenor’s voice starts giving out, and by the end, it’s raw hamburger–when asked if he would sing Strauss, Placido Domingo, who certainly has the range, said, “Are you crazy? I want to keep my voice!”)

Even at the very end, when Bacchus sings:

Deiner hab’ ich um alles bedurft!
Nun bin ich ein anderer, als ich war,
Durch deine Schmerzen bin ich reich,
Nun reg’ ich die Glieder in göttlicher Lust!
Und eher sterben die ewigen Sterne,
Eh’ denn du stürbest aus meinen Armen

his voice still rings on top. Astounding.