(L to R) Iréne Theorin (Ariadne), Lyubov Petrova (Zerbinetta), Nathan Herfindahl, Corey Evan Rotz, Greg Fedderly, and Grigory Soloviov, in Ariadne auf Naxos, Washington National Opera (photo by Karin Cooper — see more pictures)

Washington National Opera’s new production of Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos puts me in a bit of a quandary. It has a score and libretto of particular beauty and is produced rarely enough — the last time WNO mounted it was in 1994 — that I would always recommend that others see it, even if this particular production, heard on Wednesday night, is not an ideal one. It is a shame that this quirky opera, revised by Strauss and his brilliant librettist, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, as a postmodern dissection of the perils and vanities of creating opera, returns to Washington National Opera at this time. The company’s precarious financial situation has led to a season cobbled together to fulfill contracts, hardly a context for great Strauss to thrive. Even so, the production’s party atmosphere and bright costumes could make tonight’s performance (at 7 p.m.) an interesting alternative Halloween destination (see the notes at the end of this review for a possible discount opportunity).

In the first version of the opera, Ariadne was intended as a play within a play, an opera embedded within a performance of Molière’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. Strauss and Hofmannsthal revised it to stand on its own, re-conceiving the mise en abîme with a prologue that shows the last-minute preparations for a performance of Ariadne in a wealthy man’s home. Strauss parodies his own anxieties in the role of the Composer, cross-cast as a mezzo-soprano trouser role, and skewers the vanities of performers in the roles of the tenor and prima donna who are to sing the roles of Bacchus and Ariadne, as well as many other aspects of the theatrical world. At the last minute the unseen patron, through the person of his imperious major domo, demands that the evening’s two works, the opera seria Ariadne and a commedia dell’arte farce, be merged into a single work, ending in time for the fireworks scheduled at 9 p.m.