Arianna is an opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 in eight scenes by the British

British people

The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...

 composer Alexander Goehr

Alexander Goehr

Alexander Goehr is an English composer and academic.Goehr was born in Berlin in 1932, the son of the conductor and Schoenberg pupil Walter Goehr. In his early twenties he emerged as a central figure in the Manchester School of post-war British composers. In 1955–56 he joined Oliver Messiaen's...

, premiered at the Royal Opera House

Royal Opera House

The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, in 1995. It is set to the libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 (in Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

), by Ottavio Rinuccini

Ottavio Rinuccini

Ottavio Rinuccini was an Italian poet, courtier, and opera librettist at the end of the Renaissance and beginning of the Baroque eras...

, used by Claudio Monteverdi

Claudio Monteverdi

Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, gambist, and singer.Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary, marked the transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual styles of composition – the...

 in his 1608 opera, L'Arianna

L'Arianna

L'Arianna was the second opera written by Claudio Monteverdi, and one of the most influential and famous specimens of early Baroque opera. It was first performed in Mantua on 28 May 1608. The libretto is by Ottavio Rinuccini, who took the Classical story of Ariadne and Theseus from Ovid's Heroides...

. The opera is Goehr's op.

Opus number

An Opus number , pl. opera and opuses, abbreviated, sing. Op. and pl. Opp. refers to a number generally assigned by composers to an individual composition or set of compositions on publication, to help identify their works...

 58.

Background

Although Rinuccini's libretto survives, the greater part of Monteverdi's music for the opera, originally performed in Mantua

Mantua

Mantua is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy and capital of the province of the same name. Mantua's historic power and influence under the Gonzaga family, made it one of the main artistic, cultural and notably musical hubs of Northern Italy and the country as a whole...

 in 1608, has been lost. All that remains is Arianna's lament, a solo aria which Monteverdi published separately in 1623. Goehr sets most (but not all) of the original libretto, (which is based on the classical story of Ariadne

Ariadne

Ariadne , in Greek mythology, was the daughter of King Minos of Crete, and his queen Pasiphaë, daughter of Helios, the Sun-titan. She aided Theseus in overcoming the Minotaur and was the bride of the god Dionysus.-Minos and Theseus:...

 and Theseus

Theseus

For other uses, see Theseus Theseus was the mythical founder-king of Athens, son of Aethra, and fathered by Aegeus and Poseidon, both of whom Aethra had slept with in one night. Theseus was a founder-hero, like Perseus, Cadmus, or Heracles, all of whom battled and overcame foes that were...

 from Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

's Heroides

Heroides

The Heroides , or Epistulae Heroidum , are a collection of fifteen epistolary poems composed by Ovid in Latin elegiac couplets, and presented as though written by a selection of aggrieved heroines of Greek and Roman mythology, in address to their heroic lovers who have in some way mistreated,...

), preserving the lament but interspersing it with choral episodes. The orchestration

Orchestration

Orchestration is the study or practice of writing music for an orchestra or of adapting for orchestra music composed for another medium...

 is contemporary, including contrabassoon

Contrabassoon

The contrabassoon, also known as the double bassoon or double-bassoon, is a larger version of the bassoon, sounding an octave lower...

, saxophone

Saxophone

The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...

, Akai sampler and electric guitar

Electric guitar

An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...

, as is the harmonic

Harmony

In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...

 language.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere cast 15 September 1995 (Conductor: Ivor Bolton Ivor Bolton Ivor Bolton is an English conductor and harpsichordist. He studied at Clare College and at the Royal College of Music... ) (Director: Francesca Zambello Francesca Zambello Francesca Zambello is a leading American opera and theatre director. Zambello lived in Europe when she was a child, learning to speak French, Italian, German and Russian. Zambello is of Italian descent, the daughter of Jean , an actress and Charles C. Zambello, a former actor who became head of... )
Arianna/Amore	soprano Soprano A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...	Susan Graham Susan Graham Susan Graham is an American mezzo-soprano.Raised in Midland, Texas, she is a graduate of Texas Tech University and the Manhattan School of Music. She studied the piano for 13 years...
Venere/Apollo	soprano
Dorilla	soprano
Teseo	tenor Tenor The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...	J. Patrick Raftery
Bacco	counter-tenor	Axel Köhler
Giove	tenor
Tirsi	tenor
Consigliere/Messaggero	tenor

Reception

The composer wrote in the programme notes of the premiere 'It was surely an act of faith - if not of folly - for me to choose Rinuccini’s old Arianna libretto, when I could barely make out the meaning of the words. Yet I knew it was right for me[...]'. Critics tended to agree more with the first part of this statement. The review in the Musical Times for example commented '[the] setting imitates Monteverdi, but feels unnatural. [...] The opera reached its nadir in Goehr's setting of the great surviving fragment itself [..] the harmonic implications of Goehr's bass-line distortions destroyed the dramatic build-up'
Meanwhile, Opera News called it a "waste of mezzo Susan Graham's talent in the title role" and "perfunctory."

A recording of the opera, with Ruby Philogene in the title role, was issued in 1998.

Sources

• Alvarez, Geoffrey , Review: Alexander Goehr: Arianna (recording), Tempo, no. 208 (April 1999), p 52, Cambridge University Press.
• Sutcliffe, Tom, When the lights are low (review of London premiere), The Musical Times, vol 136 no, 1833. (November 1995) pp. 610–611.
• Sutcliffe, Tom, "British Journal" (review of the London premiere), Opera News
  Opera News
  Opera News is an American classical music magazine. It has been published since 1936 by the Metropolitan Opera Guild, a non-profit organization located at Lincoln Center which was founded to support the Metropolitan Opera of New York City...
  
  , vol 60 no, 8. (January 1996)