Sunday 12 February 2012

Krauss Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos

IMPORTANT Broadcast ! Clemens Krauss conducts Strauss Araiden auf Naxos, Berlin, 1935. This is historically significant. The conductor is Clemens Krauss who knew Strauss well. The cast is historic too -Viorica Ursuleac (who later married Krauss), Erna Berger and Helge Rosvaenge. It's been in circulation for several years, available from several different sources incl mp3 from amazon and HERE.

The picture above is  Ariadne auf Naxos by Lovis Corinth, the Munich artist, who was part of the Munich Secession, which predated the Vienna Secession which gets all the publicity because it's more commercially exploitable. This illustration was completed 1913, the year after Strauss completed his opera, so Corinth might have known of it, at least by repute. Notice how Corinth sends up classical antiquity and the conventions of formal art.  Ariadne's lying in an explictly sexual position, but unconscious, while Bacchus and his merry band look like they're about to trample her. And that "island", geologically impossible!

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