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Frederic Wake-Walker sticks to a vapid pop-parody that demeans the intellectual message of Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos.

Chung's mastery of orchestral colour and texture came into its own, the brooding introduction to Act 2 making for a harrowingly apocalyptic representation of tyranny.

Hartmann's staging takes a bizarre twist in the end since so far the staging had followed the naïve story very faithfully without any weird implications.

Daniele Gatti illuminates Robert Carsen's blithe Falstaff narrative

Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s Ariadne auf Naxos was first performed in 1912, in a production directed by Max Reinhardt. Unlike the version usually seen today, this first Ariadne was a long-winded play-opera-ballet hybrid, incorporating a full production of Molière’s Le bourgeois gentilhomme with dances to incidental music by Strauss followed by the short opera.