The Met’s current cast for Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos is even better news, a strong lineup beginning with the title role: Violeta Urmana, the first Met Ariadne since Leonie Rysanek who can burn up the stage with a thrilling dramatic intensity that matches her vocal brilliance. As the ardent young Composer in the Prologue, Susan Graham is so touchingly vulnerable and expressive that she almost makes me forget that Strauss wanted the part sung by a lyric soprano. And at the first performance, the audience was clearly delighted to stop the opera in its tracks to proclaim the debut of a new luminary whose career is barely three years old: German coloratura Diana Damrau, who tossed off Zerbinetta’s fiendishly stratospheric aria with staggering precision and the stage savvy of a veteran. Perhaps even Toscanini would have called this a star turn.

Opening-Night Gala
Metropolitan Opera.
September 19.

Manon
Jules Massenet.
Through April 8.

Ariadne Auf Naxos
Richard Strauss.
Through October 11.

Related:

• Archive: “Classical Music Reviews”
• Articles by Peter G. Davis
• Table of Contents: Oct 10, 2005 issue of New York | Subscribe!