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| Richard Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos - Michael Porter (Scaramuccio), Lukas Enoch Lemcke (Truffaldin), Ziyi Dai (Zerbinetta), Leon Košavić (Harlekin), Theodore Browne (Brighella) - Salzburg Festival (Photo: Thomas Aurin) |
Richard Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos; Kate Lindsey, Christina Nilson, Eric Cutler, Ziyi Dai, Johannes Silberschneider, Christoph Pohl, director: Ersan Mondtag, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor: Manfred Honeck; Salzburg Festival at the Haus für Mozart
Reviewed 7 August 2026
Interdisciplinary artist Ersan Mondtag's over-elaborate and confusing futuristic vision of Ariadne auf Naxos fails to convince as stage drama but redeemed by fine musical performances
Though Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal's Ariadne auf Naxos (in its various iterations) was firmly based in the 17th century of Moliere, did it occur to the good burgers of Stuttgart (where the first version premiered), Berlin or Vienna that it was they who were being satirised? The work might be about the complex process of making art but it also has things to say about those paying for it.
To be really daring, the new production of Ariadne auf Naxos at the Salzburg Festival should have been set in and around the Haus für Mozart in the present day. Instead, Ersan Mondtag's production was set in a fantasy future in an enclave on Mars.
We caught the second performance of Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos at Salzburg Festival's Haus für Mozart on 7 August 2026. Ersan Mondtag directed and designed, Manfred Honeck conducted the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. Choreography was by Ashley Alexandra Wright with video by Alexander Pannier. The dramaturg was Till Briegleb, a role perhaps more important than usual in this production as the plot of the opera had undergone significant changes.
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| Richard Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos - Christina Nilsson (Ariadne) - Salzburg Festival (Photo: Thomas Aurin) |
Kate Lindsey was the composer, Christina Nilsson was Ariadne, Eric Cutler was Bacchus, Ziyi Dai was Zerbinetta, Johannes Silberschneider was the majordomo, Christoph Pohl was the music master, Jonas Hacker was the dancing master with Leon Kosavic, Michael Porter, Lukas Enoch Lemcke and Theodore Browne as Zerbinetta's troupe, Jasmin Delfs as a Naiad, Anja Mittermüller as a Dryad and Marlene Metzger as Echo.
Ersan Mondtag is a multi-disciplinary artist whose credits include the German pavilion at the Venice Biennale as well as directing opera for Opera Vlaanderen, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Teatro dell'Opera in Rome, and Opera national de Lyon. His most recent operatic credit was Bizet's Les Pecheurs de Perles for Vienna State Opera set in the world of high fashion.
During a vivid account of the overture we saw a video that zoomed in on the colony on Mars. It was of a style and quality such that I half expected a voice to shout 'Thunderbirds are go!' or the theme tune from Captain Scarlet to appear.
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| Richard Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos - Christoph Pohl (Music Master), Kate Lindsey (Composer), Jonas Hacker (Dancing Master) - Salzburg Festival (Photo: Thomas Aurin) |
The basic set (used for the prologue and the opera) was striking and rather effective with multiple levels and entrances. In style there was something rather 1930s about it. Through a portal at the rear we had a constant video of the planet's surface and sundry over-imagined spacecraft, distracting in the prologue but creating some vividly striking effects during the opera.
The cast included, in addition to the 17 named roles, four dancers (including choreographer Ashley Alexandra Wright), and five actors dressed as guards wearing such skin-tight costumes as to suggest that the richest man in Vienna had an eye for masculine pulchritude!
The problem with an imagined setting was that we had no conventional iconography to help identify who was whom in all the busy-ness of back stage.. Yes, the man in black dressed like a priest was the music master (an impressive performance from Christoph Pohl). The man in the long white wig, like a refugee from The Game of Thrones, was the wig maker (Blaz Stajnko). The dancing master (an engaging performance from Jonas Hacker) was lumbered with a remarkable bright orange brush as a wig. Johannes Silberschneider as the majordomo spoke with striking elan though he did not say 'gleichzeitig' (simultaneously) with as much relish as some.
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| Richard Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos - Ziyi Dai (Zerbinetta) - Salzburg Festival (Photo: Thomas Aurin) |
Kate Lindsey's composer was presented as a somewhat androgynous but very stylish woman. I have seen Lindsey in the role before (at Glyndebourne in 2013, see my review). Here, she was full of nervous energy from the word go in a remarkably intense and full on performance. There was a soprano-like brightness to her voice and in the big moments she did not develop tonal richness but this was allied to remarkable perspicacity with the music. In a highly active performance, this Composer involved herself with the stage performance with remarkable energy. Lindsey's performance shone with passion and commitment.
Ziyi Dai's Zerbinetta was at first somewhat reticent, hardly distinguished from her troupe but Dai developed real personality and the scenes with Lindsey's composer were remarkably touching. There were also fine cameos from Christina Nilsson as the Primadonna, and Eric Cutler as the Tenor. And the whole very much captured the essence of backstage chaos, though I am not sure that Strauss and Hofmannsthal's wider message about the creation of art really came over.
For the opera proper we were in the same space, enlivened by representations of dead animals. Whilst the Naiad and Dryad (Anja Mittermüller and Jasmin Delfs) were costumed quite literally, Marlene Metzger as Echo seemed more like a woolly Smurf and she had the misfortune to be suspended from the flies. Their opening scene, finely sung, was distractingly staged as the dancers drew attention from the singers.
This was a problem throughout the opera. Ashley Alexandra Wright's choreography was vigorous, angular and sometimes contorted, it seemed often at odds with the music and drew attention to itself in a way that was unmusical.
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| Richard Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos - Anja Mittermuller (Dryad), Marlene Metzger (Echo) - Salzburg Festival (Photo: Thomas Aurin) |
Christine Nilsson's Ariadne was clear voiced and dignified. She did not impose but her voice had a calm intensity to it. 'Es gibt ein Reich' had a quiet intensity to it with Nilsson seeming able to pull focus into herself. When Ariadne sang of Theseus, one of the dancers embodied him, which was a nice touch, but too often the dancers distracted and pulled focus.
When Dai's Zerbinetta began 'Großmächtige Prinzessin' she addressed it not to Ariadne but to Kate Lindsey's Composer who had remained involved in the 'performance'. From this point Lindsey's Composer became increasingly involved in Zerbinetta and her troupe's activities, with art and life mixing in an odd way. At the climax to 'Großmächtige Prinzessin', during Dai's roulades, we were treated to an orgy as Harlekin and the troupe had (bad) sex with the dancers. It says something for Dai's technically assured performance that she never let this pull focus and I would love to see her in the role in a less distracting prodcution. Byt the end of this scene there was a general orgiastic free-for-all including the guards as well. And there was so much smoking on stage that I felt a cigarette manufacturer should have got credit in the programme.
I must confess that I found the costumes for Zerbinetta's troupe to be somewhat ugly, and certainly they were not used as a commedia dell'arte group. Leon Kosavic gave a strong performance as Harlekin but there were few, if any, opportunities for the four to function as a song and dance group.
During the ravishing trio from Naiad, Dryad and Echo heralding the arrival of Bacchus, Ersan Mondtagthrew everything on stage and the three singers were upstaged by the assembled mass of household staff. And each time the trio occurred, a similar stage distraction happened.
Throughout the opera, I was repeatedly struck by how little Mondtag's staging seemed to be sympathetic or responsive to Strauss's music: moments which required stillness and simplicity were overwhelmed with stage action. D. commented that, not knowing the opera well, he found it difficult to work out who was singing at times.
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| Richard Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos - the arrival of Bacchus - Salzburg Festival (Photo: Thomas Aurin) |
When Bacchus (Eric Cutler) finally appeared he was, of course, in a space suite complete with helmet (with wings). The suit seemed badly fitting and made Cutler look ungainly. His Bacchus was a posturing nonentity. Cutler sang with heroic energy and rather insistent tone, though the role is thankless. There was something of a contrast between his strenuousness and Nilsson's focused intensity. But she brought out the complexities of Ariadne's hesitation.
The staging only simplified at a late (too late) stage and for a moment it seemed that magic might happen. The video produced magical images, but then it was clear that the steps up to the portal (through which Cutler's Bacchus had entered) had not be designed for sopranos with long dresses. And then Nilsson's Ariadne put on Bacchus's ludicrous helmet and we finished with a risible video of the two of them in space suits.
It was left to Ziyi Dai's Zerbinetta to finish things in a wry manner.
Manfred Honeck and the orchestra were, of course, on form, giving us much to enjoy. And frankly, this was a production for the ears not the eyes.
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| Richard Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos - Salzburg Festival (Photo: Thomas Aurin) |
Ariadne auf Naxos
is a complex and tricky piece. It works if you trust it. Here Ersan Mondtag seemed to have attempted to solve the work's apparent problems whilst simply increasing them. But ultimately, I was left wondering , did Mondtag even understand or like Strauss's music.
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