Dear Nicola,

Thank you for your visit, for your patience listening to me talk, talk, talk,
thank you for introducing me to Ariadne, 
thank you for the revisit to Harvard Square 
where virtually the entirety of my adult life has been centered, 
and which turns out to be the focus of my novels....

I spent a substantial part of last evening looking at two computer screens,
on the left successively the text of the prologue and the opera; on the
right Karl Böhm conducting die Wiener Philharmoniker and die Wiener Staatsoper
in an impressive and revealing Youtube performance.

Perhaps it's in attempt to insinuate myself into the work, that I read into
it an implicit and sometimes not so implicit contest between Hofmannsthal
and Strauß, epitomized in the prologue's ironic criticism of the music master's
and his pupil's obstinate resistance to the change and adaptation requisite
in a changing world. The contentious correspondence between Hofmannsthal
and Strauß, which is not accessible to me, would probably shed much light 
on Strauß' interpretation of this issue.

So far as Hofmannsthal's perspective is concerned, I think I recognize his
penchant for a global (philosophical) view of experience, manifested in his
short plays about "world theater" das große Welttheather, das kleine 
Welttheater, Jedermann,(everyman). Wikipedia.de points out to me, that
the theme of Ariadne of Naxos is the inner imperative for change as essential
to survival. Not only must Ariadne herself accept change, but so must the
music teacher and the composer. And perhaps I should take the gospel seriously
and start to learn about music after Mendelssohn. 

Again, thank you for your visit.

Jochen