Ariadne and Justification

Extract

The revival at Covent Garden this season of Richard Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos, though it was but indifferently well directed and sung, confirmed me in a supposition that this opera affords the Christian a useful pair of images for his meditation upon the ways in which God is said to justify man. The musical action of Ariadne presents whomsoever would employ them with lively images for the common faith of Christians and for the different doctrinal formulations of this faith by Roman and Lutheran theologians. It suggests, also, how far these formulations may be related to that faith. The theologian’s nice arguments are rendered immediately appreciable in Strauss’ music. Whether he, or Hofmannsthal his librettist, had ever been confronted with the excitements of the sixteenth century disputants, Strauss, in the composition of this delightful opera, was exploring for himself just that relation of seeing to knowing which is structurally so important for doctrines of justification, and he was doing so within a context which most naturally suggested that a man might come to share in the divine life.

‘Seeing’ is commonly taken as a strong metaphor for all kinds of ‘knowing’, not only that which depends on our opening our eyes. This much, at least, is evident. Nodding in comprehension, I say ‘I see’.