Music preview: All change for Scottish Opera’s Ariadne auf Naxos

Hey, this is 2018 – why shouldn’t there be a bit of same-sex attraction?” Director and designer Antony McDonald is talking about his new production of Richard Strauss’s opera Ariadne auf Naxos, which opens in Glasgow next week. He’s referring in particular to what sounds like a subtle but significant shake-up of the opera, with a few sly changes to its traditional roles, one of which is the character of the Composer, who in McDonald’s production is a woman. It’s a gender reversal made all the more natural and logical by the fact that it’s conventionally a trouser role – a male part portrayed and sung by a female. “I really don’t think that nowadays the Composer needs to be a man,” McDonald explains. “We’re not making a big thing of it, but we’re referring to our Composer as ‘she’.” It’s a sex swap, however, that provides an entirely fresh perspective on the Composer’s brief liaison with the flirty chanteuse Zerbinetta.