Roussel: Bacchus et Ariane

Albert Roussel (1869-1937)

Bacchus et Ariane, Op.43


Act 1: Prelude - Games of the young men and women - Dance of the Labyrinth - Bacchus appears - Dance of Bacchus


Act 2: Prelude (Ariadne sleeps) - Ariadne awakes - The kiss - Bacchus’s spell - Parade of the Worshippers of Bacchus- Dance of Ariadne - Dance of Ariadne and Bacchus - Bacchanale - Coronation of Ariadne.


Roussel was born in to trade, and suffered a series of early bereavements: both his parents were dead by the time he was eight, and he was moved between various relatives as a boy, from grandparents who also died, eventually to his maternal aunt. He showed some early signs of musical talent and had lessons from the parish organist, but his real strength was in mathematics. He left home at 15 to study in Paris, and at 17 enrolled in the French Naval College. He spent seven years as a midshipman, and only decided to pursue a career in music at 25. His earliest attempt at composition is a fantasy for violin and piano, written in 1892 while he was serving on the naval ship Melpomène. Following a period of leave in 1894 during which he studied with Julien Koszu, who urged him to settle in Paris, he resigned his commission and moved to the capital. He studied with Vincent D’Indy, who soon entrusted his pupil to take his counterpoint classes for him. Roussel thus became the teacher of Varèse and Satie among others.


His relatively late decision to become a musician perhaps accounts for the fact that his earliest music seems torn between influences: his music owes something both to the French symphonic tradition exemplified by his teacher D’Indy, while also drawing on the innovations of his contemporaries Debussy and Ravel. Asian and Far Eastern music also left a profound impression on him when he encountered it on his voyages with the navy.


One of his earliest major successes as a composer was his first ballet, Le festin de l'araignée, premiered in 1913. By the time he came to write his second, Bacchus et Ariane, Roussel was in his early 60s and at the height of his career, having recently travelled to the U.S.A. to hear Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony première his Third Symphony. His music by now had evolved from the Debussy influenced impressionism of his youth to a more neo-classical style. His orchestral writing retains its sumptuousness, as Bacchus et Ariane amply demonstrates, but this is paired with a new clarity of line and a rhythmic vigour that acknowledges the influence of Stravinsky’s ballets.


The plot of Bacchus et Ariane is fairly minimal. Prior to the events depicted in the ballet, Ariadne, daughter of King Minos, has fled her home of Crete with Theseus, whom she has helped in his quest to kill the Minotaur that lived in the labyrinth built by her father. The ballet opens with a scene of young men and maidens dancing and celebrating Theseus’s defeat of the Minotaur and escape from the Labyrinth to the island of Naxos. Theseus and his comrades reenact his adventures on Crete. The god Bacchus appears, disguised, and envelops Ariadne in his black cloak, causing her to faint. Theseus and his men rush at Bacchus, but fall back when he reveals his identity. He commands them to leave the island and claims Ariadne for his wife. He enters her dreams and dances with her, then lays her down on the rock where she sleeps.


Act 2 begins with a prelude depicting the sleeping Ariadne. She awakens, and sees Theseus’s ship sailing away. Believing herself to be alone and abandoned, she attempts to throw herself into the sea, but falls instead into the arms of Bacchus. Bacchus and Ariadne reprise their dream-dance, now awake, in music of ever intensifying eroticism. At the climax of their dance, Bacchus kisses Ariadne and transforms her into an immortal. Bacchus’s followers appear for a final wild dance, before Bacchus leads Ariadne to the highest rock, and crowns her with stars.