The Art of Compromise
Brief yet powerful, “Sein wir wieder gut” (Track 4 or MOoD clip 14) is perhaps the musical highlight of the Prologue. Sung by the Composer, this aria encapsulates many of the broader themes elaborated throughout Ariadne auf Naxos—namely, the function of art and the transformative power of love. The role of the Composer is considered a “trouser role” or “breeches role,” traditionally a man played by a woman actor or singer in men’s clothing. While these roles are typically sung by mezzo-sopranos, as in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier (1911), the score for Ariadne auf Naxos indicates that the Composer is a soprano part. Still, the role continues to be sung by both voice types.
And just like Octavian in Rosenkavalier, the Composer in the Prologue of Ariadne is a youthful, naïve adolescent on the verge of manhood. Before singing “Sein wir wieder gut,” the Composer has been introduced as an overly academic, philosophical, and self-serious artist dismayed at the prospect of his tragic opera being followed by an Italian vaudeville troupe. He is all intellect and no experience. When he learns that these two performances will not be sequential but in fact simultaneous, it sends him into a tailspin (“I shall not live through this hour”).
A brief run-in with Zerbinetta, however, changes everything. The Composer beholds the alluring leader of the comedy troupe and quickly falls for her, succumbing to a wave of emotion he has never before experienced. As a result, he gains a whole new perspective on the world and on his art. His ensuing aria reflects this profound shift as he contemplates his craft—a meta-operatic moment that performs in miniature what the two-part structure of Ariadne auf Naxos does on a broader scale.
The piece begins with the orchestra reintroducing the first theme from the Prologue’s introduction as the Composer announces his newfound willingness to compromise with the commedia dell’arte performers led by Zerbinetta (“Let’s be friends again! / I see everything differently now”). Throughout the aria, and especially in these first few phrases, the vocal line extends across bar lines (“anderen,” “Tiefen,” “Freund,” “manches”), suggesting an expansion of possibility that can no longer be so easily contained.
This effusive outburst soon gives way to open questioning, marked by a shift in meter. The time signature in the orchestra changes from 4/4 to 6/4 while the vocal part remains in 4/4. The Composer repeats the word “jedoch” (“And yet”) five times in increasingly quick succession. Combined with the syncopated rhythm, this short section shows the young composer groping, searching for an answer to his implicit query: If the complexity of human existence cannot be adequately described in language, what kind of art is up to the task?
That answer, he decides, is music. As he resolves to face this challenge with courage (“Mut”), the vocal parts and orchestra fall back into metrical alignment in cut time (4/4 or 2/2). It is in this reestablished sense of stability that the literal highpoint of the aria arrives. When the Composer declares “The world is delightful,” he sings a high B-flat for the first time—the highest note sung in the piece that only returns once more on the final word, “Musik!”
As if to enact the spiritual transformation undergone by the Composer, “Sein wir wieder gut” concludes with a key change from C major to E-flat major in the middle of the phrase “Music is a sacred art.” Now convinced of his duty to “[bring] together men of courage” through his art, the newly wise Composer sings a steady ascending line—reaching a high B-flat once again—in proclaiming once and for all his dedication to “Sacred music!”
Though just more than two pages long, the Composer’s aria performs several important functions in Strauss’s opera. It marks a dramatic turning point where something previously deemed impossible, the combination of tragic opera and vaudeville comedy, proves viable and perhaps even worthwhile. It also anticipates the later transformation in the opera, when the abandoned Ariadne foregoes grief and finds new love with Bacchus—which she does, not coincidentally, with Zerbinetta’s encouragement.
And finally, it gestures to the artistic collaboration that sparked the work itself. Just as the Composer reflects that “poets may write … quite beautiful words” that cannot express the human condition as well as music, the entire project of Ariadne auf Naxos was first proposed to Strauss by librettist and longtime collaborator Hugo von Hofmannsthal, who wrote to the composer in 1911, “purely for you, purely for your music!” Perhaps the Composer’s aria is not just the naïve outburst of an enamored adolescent but in fact a tribute from one artist (and friend) to another.