Various - Richard Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos - The Times

With no fireworks concert this year, it would be pushing it to say that the Edinburgh International Festival is going out with a bang. However, it’s certainly ending in a blaze of superb singing. The final week has included visits from Joyce DiDonato, Renée Fleming and, here, Dorothea Röschmann, scotching any idea that the 2021 festival has been a mere Covid consolation prize. This has been the real deal.

Covid has slimmed the festival down, though, and that makes Ariadne auf Naxos a shrewd choice of opera for the final week. It has an orchestra of only 37, spread out on stage, and there’s no chorus, but if the forces are small then the quality certainly isn’t. There’s a token nod towards a staging, but the focus in this show is overwhelmingly on Strauss’s music, which is quite right because what this crack team of singers and players produce is terrific.

True, Röschmann sounds a little pressed in the title role, with choppy breath control in Ariadne’s great solo scene, but her voice carries power, and everyone around her is on peak form. Catriona Morison’s Composer is sensational. Her voice has an effortless richness that conveys youthful impetuosity and artistic hauteur, but always in a gorgeously full mezzo. She’s a real star, as is David Butt Philip, who sings Bacchus not only with mahogany tone, but with electrifying power, making something generous and exciting out of one of Strauss’s most punishing tenor roles.

Brenda Rae sings Zerbinetta with glittering voice and sparkling coloratura, leavened with a twinkling touch of humour, and every other part is cast from strength, with a beautifully blended trio of nymphs and quartet of comedians. Thomas Quasthoff brings vocal royalty to the Major Domo.

Building on their Ring performances of previous years, and aided by the persuasive conducting of Lothar Koenigs, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra confirms itself as the finest opera orchestra the festival has hosted in decades. Louisa Muller’s concert staging isn’t much more than some directed toing and froing in front of the orchestra. Come for what you’ll hear: it’s first-rate, and ends this year’s festival on a high.