THE SONGBIRD: Janet Perry was born in Minneapolis in 1947, studied voice at the Curtis Institute, and promptly moved to Austria to launch her career. She made her debut in Linz as Zerlina in 1969 and gradually become a star in Europe in the 1970s and 1980s, with leading lyric-coloratura roles in Vienna, Cologne, Munich, Glyndebourne, Paris, Aix-en-Provence, Martina Franca, Milan, Bregenz, and Montpellier and many operatic and operetta television appearances. As a favorite of Herbert von Karajan, Perry was featured in his prominent studio recordings in the 1980s and sang several seasons at the Salzburg Festival for him (Barbarina in 1976 and 1979, Nannetta in 1980 and 1981, Sophie in 1983 and 1984, and Micaela in 1985, as well as two solo aria concerts).

THE MUSIC: Richard Strauss's opera "Ariadne auf Naxos" premiered twice. The first was in 1912 in Stuttgart where it was conceived as a short opera to accompany a new adaption of Moliere's play, "Le Bourgeois gentilhomme." This version was performed in other cities over the next year (Zurich, Munich, Prague, and London), but the play/opera hybrid concept proved ineffective (and way too long at over six hours). Working with his librettist/partner Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Strauss refashioned the opera as a stand-alone work with a newly added prologue, which premiered in this new form to success in Vienna in 1916. This version of the opera was quickly embraced by critics, artists, and the public -- it has since been recorded commercially many times and is performed regularly around the world. Only rarely have there been staged or even concert productions of the earlier 1912 version and there is only one commercial recording. "Ariadne" is one of my absolute favorite operas -- I love its witty libretto, its satiric character archetypes, its intriguing themes about art, and Strauss's simply astounding music. Zerbinetta's grand aria "Grossmächtige Prinzessin" is arguably the most daunting coloratura showpiece ever written -- incomprehensibly so in the longer, higher 1912 version, but still insane in the 1916 version. It's not just long at nearly 12 minutes; it doesn't merely contain a full armada of coloratura vocal acrobatics (trills, cadenzas, scales, filigree, high notes, wide leaps, and so on); it's not only the freewheeling harmonic structures -- no, this scene demands a level of virtuosic musicianship and theatrical flair that is simply unmatched. Zerbinetta is a coloratura soubrette on steroids! In this scene and role, Strauss invented an entirely new musical language to exploit the unique glories of the coloratura soprano voice. He revisited this proprietary mode of highly gymnastic vocalism a few other times afterwards: in the art song "Amor" (1918), with Fiakermilli in "Arabella" (1933), and for Aminta in "Die schweigsame Frau" (1935).

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