Martinu composed the one-act opera “Ariane” over the course of a single month, in June 1958. He prepared the libretto himself according to his friend Georges Neveux’s play “The Voyage of Theseus“ (1943). Most of the text was taken from the second and third act, besides Ariane’s lamentation at the beginning of the fourth act, which he adapted as a grand coloratura aria within the opera’s finale.

Soon after its completion, in summer 1958, and hoping for a world premiere at Milan’s La Scala, Mar...