Posted: Mon., Sep. 13, 2004, 4:32pm PT

Opera

Ariadne Auf Naxos

(Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles; 3,098 seats; $190 top)

By Richard S. Ginell

Petra-Maria Schnitzer, left, Martin Ganter and Peter Seiffert perform in Los Angeles Opera's 'Ariadne Auf Naxos,' directed by William Friedkin.

Los Angeles Opera presents Richard Strauss' opera in two acts, libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Directed by William Friedkin. Conductor, Kent Nagano with Los Angeles Opera Orchestra.

Ariadne - Petra-Maria Schnitzer Composer - Lioba Braun Zerbinetta - Lyubov Petrova Bacchus - Peter Seiffert Music Master - Martin Gantner Major-Domo - Georg-Martin Bode Officer - Gary Rideout Dancing Master - Joseph Frank Wigmaker - John Atkins Footman - Jinyoung Jang Harlekin - Hugh Russell Scaramuccio - Ian Thompson Truffaldin - James Creswell Brighella - Peter Nathan Foltz Naiad - Sarah Jane McMahon Dryad - Deanne Meek Echo - J oohee Choi

There are many stage directors who update operas by painting mustaches on masterpieces, gleefully disregarding what the creators intended and bragging about their ignorance. Other stage directors, not so many in number, can also do audacious new things with old works while maintaining a direct hotline with what the composer and librettist actually wrote. William Friedkin is of the latter breed -- and judging from his lively, inventive, funny, visually stunning contemporary take on Richard Strauss' "Ariadne auf Naxos" for Los Angeles Opera, he could eventually take his place with the great ones.

A strange hybrid of opera seria, opera buffa and meditations on art vs. commerce and various states of love, "Ariadne's" premise is particularly suited for an update. In a nutshell, a filthy-rich 18th century Viennese bigshot orders a serious opera company and a light-hearted theater troupe to perform their productions simultaneously so that he can save time for a fireworks show for his guests. The fellow with the gold calls the tune -- and it doesn't take much of a leap to project that idea into the bottom-line-driven contemporary Hollywood scene.

Up until the climactic Ariadne-Bacchus duet, Friedkin goes for an all-out uproarious satire, perhaps even further than the creators intended. Yet just as Strauss loads his chamber orchestra with big Wagnerian gestures during the duet, Friedkin avoids anticlimax with some cinematic tricks of his trade -- stunning visuals of the night sky, brilliantly evocative lighting, and finally, in an inspired closing gambit to unify both halves of the work, the simulated fireworks display as demanded by the rich patron.

Indeed, the Ariadne-Bacchus duet was made especially credible and inevitable by the obvious chemistry between soprano Petra-Maria Schnitzer (Ariadne) and Heldentenor Peter Seiffert (Bacchus). Both had plenty of voice to carry them through Strauss' treacherous writing, with a symbolically white-gowned Schnitzer evoking an appealing Sieglinde-like femininity.

Even more treacherous is the music that Zerbinetta sings. Russian soprano Lyubov Petrova nimbly tossed it off with her twittering vibrato, while her provocative costume in the Prologue and saucy acting sometimes took Zerbinetta over the top into a self-parody of a parody. Lioba Braun's Composer (a soprano in male clothing) looked properly studious and thus out-of-place in all this theatrical madness; her singing was OK but not affecting.

Overseeing this hybrid of styles was Kent Nagano, an experienced hand at Strauss (his conducting of "Die Frau Ohne Schatten" in February here was the best thing about that production) and on his way to becoming a master. Ultra-fastidious in bringing out the colors in the score, curvaceously shaping each phrase, gently supporting and guiding his singers, Nagano is approaching the examples of Herbert von Karajan, Karl Bohm, Fritz Reiner -- and even Strauss himself as a conductor in this repertoire.

In the opera portion of the work dealing with the Greek legend of an abandoned Ariadne, set designer Edwin Chan produced a gorgeously realistic, sharply-etched desert-island set, with the kibitzing theater troupe dressed in wildly colorful commedia dell-arte costumes and bearing water toys suitable for Zuma Beach.

Set, Edwin Chan; costumes, Sam Fleming; lighting, Mark Jonathan; choreography, David Bridel; puppetry, Michael Curry. Reviewed Sept. 12, 2004, closes Oct. 2.