Merola Opera Program’s solid production of Richard Strauss’ 1916 “Ariadne auf Naxos,” onstage over the weekend at San Francisco Conservatory of Music, is an opera within an opera, a mashup of highbrow and lowbrow and a commentary on so-called society. The work, sung in German and featuring some of the genre’s most glorious music, begins in a luxurious home where the up-and-coming Composer is informed by his patron, the richest man in Vienna, […]
