ROYAL ACADEMY OPERA TRIPLE BILL by Monteverdi, Strauss, Waley-Cohen, From (2022/2022), Directed by Polly Graham, Conductor Ryan Wigglesworth, Elizabeth Kenny

This triple bill centres around stories of women. Monteverdi’s Lamento d’Arianna and the bustling Prologue to Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos both look at the story of Ariadne – who was abandoned by Theseus on Naxos – but from very different perspectives. Monteverdi’s searing vocal writing takes us to the heart of Ariadne’s pain and anger, while Strauss and librettist Hofmannsthal dance around the story with a meta-theatrical narrative. WITCH, a newly commissioned opera by Freya Waley-Cohen with a libretto by Ruth Mariner, inspired by the occult poetry of Rebecca Tamás, offers two interwoven narratives that reclaim the idea of female agency and desire. This is a magical realist coming-of-age story, set against the backdrop of the historical horror of what it has meant to be a woman fighting for power and freedom.