THE SONGBIRD: Born in Poland in 1940, Urszula Koszut studied in Katowice and Warsaw. Her debut took place in Stuttgart as Lucia in 1967. She sang in Hamburg, Munich, Berlin, Frankfurt, Cologne, Zurich, Geneva, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Genoa, and Strasbourg. Her North American appearances included Chicago, Houston, and Toronto. At the Glyndebourne Festival in 1970 she was Queen of the Night; she also appeared at the Edinburgh and Bregenz Festivals. In 1972, Koszut became a member of the Vienna State Opera singing Zerbinetta (3 times), Queen of the Night (17), Gilda (3), Konstanze (1), and Antonia and Olympia (1), along with a couple of contemporary works. Koszut appeared regularly in her native Poland, especially in Warsaw.

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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