Historical Background and Musical Analysis
Ariadne auf Naxos belonged to the genre known as German melodrama, an attempt is to merge spoken dialogue with music, making it the only form of opera with no singing. Brandes wrote the text of Ariadne auf Naxos for his wife Charlotte, a famous singer and actress of the day. She played the part of Ariadne in the premiere. The basis for Brandes' libretto was a cantata by Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg. However, Tim Ashley in his review of a 2005 performance of the work, suggests that Brandes may have been influenced by Virgil's Aeneid, "Theseus is a man of destiny and conscience; Ariadne has no Bacchus to redeem her and instead commits suicide after seeing Theseus sail away".
Mozart attended a production of Ariadne auf Naxos and became a great admirer of Benda's compositions. In 1778 he wrote to his father expressing the desire to compose a duodrama entitled Semiramide on the model of Benda's Ariadne auf Naxos and Medea. He believed at the time that melodrama was the way to solve the problems of operatic recitative. However, Mozart never got around to creating a duodrama. He did create a miniature melodrama within his unfinished operetta, Zaide, written in 1780. Other composers who admired and were influenced by Benda's melodramas include Carl Maria von Weber and Ludwig van Beethoven.
Read more about this topic: Ariadne Auf Naxos (Benda)
Famous quotes containing the words historical, background, musical and/or analysis:
“We can imagine a society in which no one could survive as a social being because it does not correspond to biologically determined perceptions and human social needs. For historical reasons, existing societies might have such properties, leading to various forms of pathology.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“... every experience in life enriches one’s background and should teach valuable lessons.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“I think no woman I have had ever gave me so sweet a moment, or at so light a price, as the moment I owe to a newly heard musical phrase.”
—Stendhal [Marie Henri Beyle] (1783–1842)
“The spider-mind acquires a faculty of memory, and, with it, a singular skill of analysis and synthesis, taking apart and putting together in different relations the meshes of its trap. Man had in the beginning no power of analysis or synthesis approaching that of the spider, or even of the honey-bee; but he had acute sensibility to the higher forces.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)