Ariadne auf Naxos

About the show

A wealthy Viennese host orders a serious opera and a commedia dell’arte troupe to perform simultaneously after the evening’s dinner runs late. The young Composer reluctantly accepts, then despairs over the changes. In the opera within the opera, Ariadne, abandoned on Naxos, mourns her lost love and longs for death. Zerbinetta and her troupe try to cheer her, with Zerbinetta advising her to find another lover. Ariadne mistakes Bacchus for the messenger of death, but they fall in love and she agrees to follow him.