Ariadne Auf Naxos

Soile Isokoski (Ariadne), Kate Lindsey (Composer), Laura Claycomb (Zerbinetta), Sergey Skorokhodov (Bacchus), Thomas Allen (Music Master), Dmitri Vargin (Harlequin), James Kryshak (Scaramuccio), Torben Jürgens (Truffaldino), Andrew Stenson (Brighella), Ana Maria Labin (Naiad), Gabriela I?toc (Echo), Adriana Di Paola (Dryad), William Relton (Major-Domo), Frederick Long (Lackey), Michael Wallace (Wig-Maker), Stuart Jackson (Officer) & London Philharmonic Orchestra
Vladimir Jurowski (conductor) & Katharina Thoma (director)

Director Katharina Thoma sets Richard Strauss’s comedy in a country house in the South Downs (a surrogate for Glyndebourne), immediately before and during the Second World War. Hofmannsthals’ conceit – that a hapless young composer has to accept the simultaneous performance of his new tragic opera with a burlesque from a commedia dell’arte troupe - is turned into a touching wartime drama of nurses, invalids, airmen – and of painful delusions and soul-searching, before final happiness.

Excellent cast led by Thomas Allen as the Music Master and Soile Isokoski as Ariadne.

Extra features: When Two Worlds Collide, Thomas Allen at Glyndebourne, Vladimir Jurowski on his final production as Music Director and a cast gallery.

Running time: 128 minutes - Subtitles: EN/FR/DE/KO - Sound format: 2.0LPCM + 5.1(5.0) DTS

"Ariadne and Bacchus have rarely been so 'absolutely human'. Soile Isokoski's suicidal patient rings truer than any heroine I've ever seen - and perhaps this is the role's most luminously sung performance...Skorokhodov, as a wounded airman, has lungs of steel and can act, too. Laura Claycomb is a decoration-perfect Zerbinetta, and she makes every gesture meaningful."
BBC Music Magazine October 2014 *****