The woman who solved opera’s hardest problem – by ditching the singing (2024)

What do you do when reviving an opera that has already had two different first halves written for it before? Create yet another one, of course. Iván Fischer’s revival of Richard Strauss’s 1912 opera Ariadne auf Naxos – which has played across Europe this summer and comes to Vicenza Opera Festival later this month – ditches the comic prologue Strauss conceived in 1916 for 35 minutes of wordless clowning.

“There is no singing at all,” says the actor and director Chiara D’Anna – a Commedia dell’arte expert who choreographed Fischer’s new section. “Instead, the singers come on stage and prepare to stage an opera. But they don’t necessarily do a good job, they get in each other’s way, there is a bossy character and a playful character. There is a constant flow of gags and mistakes. It’s chaos, basically.”

If you know Strauss’s opera you’ll recognise that such antic tomfoolery is very much in keeping with a piece that splices Commedia dell’arte with the ancient Greek myth of Ariadne. Strauss originally conceived the opera as an amuse bouche to to be performed at the end of Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s new adaptation of Moliere’s comic satire Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. Strauss also composed the music for the play.

Yet the end result was a flop. So, in 1916, Strauss replaced the Moliere with a new prologue in which an opera company and a burlesque comedy troupe, who both intend to stage a version of a new opera, Ariadne auf Naxosduring an evening of music.Yet they areforced to work together on a single version after the evening’s wealthy, philistinic Viennese host decides there isn’t time for both. The sequence – in which both troupes argue with each other furiously about the right way to do it – both sets up the opera itself and exemplifies its playful core clash between low and high art.

Purists may bulk at use of Commedia dell’arte in Fischer’s new prologue. But, for D’Anna, it presented an opportunity to refresh an art-form that has its roots in Renaissance Italian street theatre and which draws its life force from cocking a snook at the powerful and rich.

“Commedia dell’arte reveals so much about what we consider popular and therefore low art,” she says. “For me, it’s about challenging the prevalence of the western culture that sees the written word as culture and all other performance – mime, jesters, street theatre, oral culture – as something else. [It’s] mocking the pretensions of high culture all the time.”

I have met D’Anna, 48, at the terrace cafe of the BFI on the Southbank.She was born to a working-class family in Turin and has spent the last 20 years in the UK. As an actress she is best known for her relationship with the British filmmaker Peter Strickland – she starred opposite Toby Jones in 2012’s Berberian Sound Studio and played the seemingly submissive Evelyn in The Duke of Burgundy, about the sadomasochistic sexual role play between two women.

Yet physical theatre is her speciality. What’s it like working in England, which doesn’t have the same physical theatre heritage that most of Europe enjoys?

“It’s true that, in Britain, a bit too much attention is given to the slapstick element of physical comedy, it tends to veer into pantomime territory,” she considers. “But Commedia dell’arte is often very dark and very violent and addresses very serious issues. It’s a comment on power – who has it and who doesn’t.”

But what about Punch and Judy? Charlie Chaplin? “Yes, there are obviously exceptions. Chaplin certainly had the courage to utilise laughter to make us think about society or politics with work such as The Great Dictator. But today we have the problem of political correctness. I notice that many young artists seem to think we can’t laugh at injustice, but yes we can. Comedy is incredibly powerful at showing us the shortcomings of our society.”

She wonders if Britain is a bit too much in thrall to the text. I point out we have plenty of conversations about where the next new playwright is coming from, but rarely the next mime artist. “You have Shakespeare! The weight of a hierarchical way of thinking can be difficult to shake off sometimes.”

D’Anna also teaches movement at Rada. Her work involves “preparing the actor to be more aware of their body, the space around it, and anything that enters that space. It’s about their relationship with everything around them. Whenever a character enters a dialogue with another, it’s the electricity between two people that captures the imagination of an audience and makes them think – ah yes, I believe you.”

And what about the role of intimacy coordinators, now often seen as essential to the ‘safety’ of actors in theatre and film alike. D’Anna isn’t sure they’re always necessary: “Perhaps two performers could negotiate this by themselves? A long enough devised process ought to allow that actors to develop such an understanding they know exactly how far they can go. That’s the aim, to get to a point between performers where even words are not necessary any more.”

D’Anna is an egalitarian who worries constantly about opera’s perceived elitist image. What does she think can be done to break down this perception?

“It’s a problem all major art institutions are struggling with,” she says. “Theatre architecture can be very off putting. The National Theatre for example,” and she stops for a minute to cast her arms towards the big brutalist structurelooming to our right, “is lovely but it’s not a physically inviting space. I come from a working-class background and I still remember the first time I saw a cello. Gradually I realised, oh, this thing is not from a different planet. I don’t need to feel inferior just because I don’t understand it. So sometimes you can’t expect the people to come to you, you have to go to them. Even if that means going out to perform on the street.”

Spoken like a true Commedia dell’arte artist.

Ariadne auf Naxos is at Vicenza Opera Festival Oct 24-27.vicenzaoperafestival.com

The woman who solved opera’s hardest problem – by ditching the singing (2024)
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