Receiving its premiere in a lavish production at the Paris Opéra on May 22, 1931,—with Olga Spessiwtsewa dancing Ariane, Serge Peretti as Theseus, and choreography by Serge Lifar, who danced Bacchus—Bacchus et Ariane met a cool reception and venomous criticism of the set and costumes by Giorgio di Chirico. The flop was remarkable, for, taken with his Third Symphony, Bacchus et Ariane is the glowing summit of Roussel's symphonic art. Partitioned into suites, the ballet's two acts have won success in the concert hall, beginning with performances led by Charles Munch in 1933 and by Pierre Monteux in 1934.

Taking up music as a career in his mid-twenties, in a time of unparalleled diversity and experimentation, Roussel was keenly aware of style. A prolonged flirtation with the sensuous world of Impressionism stimulated his first symphonic masterpieces—the Symphony No. 1 ("Le Poème de la forêt" [1906]) and the glowing Evocations (1910). With Evocations, and his marriage to Blanche Preisach followed by an extended honeymoon in India and Cambodia, a strain of exoticism colored his work, culminating in the great opera-ballet, Padmâvatî (1914/18). The "hermetic" Second Symphony (the composer's description [1919/21]) marks a stylistic shake-out, a turn toward purely musical processes, and a new—non-programmatic, non-descriptive—linear classicism realized in the works of the 1920s, and preeminently in the condensed, powerful utterance of the Third Symphony (1929/30).

Thus, when offered Abel Hermant's scenario for Bacchus et Ariane, Roussel took it with the serenity of a master raconteur who knows how to marshal his effects—and who has considerable effects to marshal—lavishing them upon this ancient fable which has fired the imaginations of musicians through the ages. From the opening propulsive bound, celebrating Theseus' slaying of the Minotaur, the listener is transported by a unique rhythmic vivacity of strongly accented, often enticingly irregular, and arrestingly shifting meters. For Roussel, the Dionysian is not (as it was for, say, Szymanowski) primarily intoxicating and erotic—Bacchus is a god of enchantments and compelling dynamism. And Ariane never fails to draw from him music of sinuous tenderness. Throughout, the score is rife with glowing melody and preternatural animation, couched in orchestral writing ranging from caressing sorcery to coruscating brilliance. The music rises to each moment—Ariane's salto mortale, Bacchus' kiss and spell, the procession of Bacchic worshippers, and so on—with richly compact, spellbinding invention. And it must be said that the final Bacchanale and coronation of Ariane ranks among the most powerfully whelming endings in French music of any genre.

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