The famous ancient legend of Princess Ariadne, who is forsaken by her beloved Theseus, is a favourite subject in the history of opera. In his Italian solo cantata “Arianna a Naxos”, probably written in late 1789, Joseph Haydn succeeded in crafting a captivating psychological drama of one of the most deeply hurt women in Greek mythology. In two recitatives and two arias the princess must endure everything from trepidation to wrath, from grief to desperate love in a musically emphatic manner. Our ...