One of the earliest operas in general, it was composed in 1607–1608 and first performed on 28 May 1608, as part of the musical festivities for a royal wedding at the court of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga in Mantua.

The libretto, which survives complete, was written in eight scenes by Ottavio Rinuccini, who used Ovid's Heroides and other classical sources to relate the story of Ariadne's abandonment by Theseus on the island of Naxos and her subsequent elevation as bride to the god Bacchus.

This fragment became a highly influential musical work and was widely imitated; the "expressive lament" became an integral feature of Italian opera for much of the 17th century.

[2][3] During that time, significant developments were taking place in the world of musical theatre; in 1598 the work generally recognised as the first in the new genre of "opera"—Jacopo Peri's Dafne—was performed in Florence.

[7] Monteverdi was then required to write several pieces for performance at the wedding of the duke's son and heir Francesco to Margaret of Savoy, planned for early May 1608.

[8] These included a musical prologue for Battista Guarini's play L'idropica and a setting of the dramatic ballet Il ballo delle ingrate ("Dance of the Ungrateful Ladies"), with a text by Ottavio Rinuccini.

Other works under consideration were Peri's Le nozze di Peleo e Tetide ("The marriage of Peleus and Thetis") with a libretto by Francesco Cini, and a new setting of Dafne by Marco da Gagliano.

[10] He had become widely known through his verse contributions to the celebrated intermedi for Girolamo Bargagli's play La Pellegrina (The Pilgrim Woman), performed in May 1589 at the wedding of Ferdinando I de' Medici and Christina of Lorraine.

[12] For his Arianna libretto Rinuccini drew on a variety of classical sources, notably the tenth book of Ovid's Heroides, parts of the Carmina of Catullus, and the section in Virgil's epic Aeneid dealing with Dido's abandonment by Aeneas.

He also used aspects of more recent literary works—Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, Torquato Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata, and Giovanni Andrea dell' Anguillara's 1561 translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses.

[13] The libretto was extended during the rehearsals when Carlo de' Rossi, a member of the duke's court, reported the Duchess Eleonora's complaint that the piece was "very dry" and needed to be enriched with further action.

[18] The musicologist Tim Carter suggests that Arianna's lament may have been added to the opera at this late stage, to exploit La Florinda's well-known vocal capabilities.

They are fleeing from Crete, where the pair have been complicit in the slaying of Ariadne's monster half-brother, the Minotaur, in the labyrinth below the palace of her father, King Minos.

Follino's account records that although the duke had strictly limited the numbers from his household entitled to be there, many distinguished foreign visitors could not be seated and were obliged to crowd around the doors.

As the action began, Apollo was revealed "sitting on a very beautiful cloud ... which, moving down little by little ... reached in a short space of time the stage and ... disappeared in a moment".

The ambassador for the House of Este, who referred to the work as "a comedy in music", mentioned in particular Andreini's performance which, in her lament, "made many weep", and that of Francesco Rasi, who as Bacchus "sang divinely".

[31] Early in 1620 Striggio asked Monteverdi to send him the music for a projected performance in Mantua as part of the celebration for the Duchess Caterina's birthday.

Rinuccini's libretto, which was published on several occasions during Monteverdi's lifetime, has survived intact, but the opera's music disappeared some time after 1640, with the exception of Ariadne's scene 6 lament, known as "Lamento d'Arianna".

[39][40] The lament was saved from oblivion by Monteverdi's decision to publish it independently from the opera: first in 1614 as a five-voice madrigal,[41] then in 1623 as a monody,[42] and finally in 1641 as a sacred hymn, "Lamento della Madonna".

[43] The five-voice adaptation was included in the composer's Sixth Book of Madrigals; there is evidence that this arrangement was made at the suggestion of an unnamed Venetian gentleman who thought that the melody would benefit from counterpoint.

[46] In her study The Recitative Soliloquy, Margaret Murata records that laments of this kind became a staple feature of operas until about 1650, "thereafter more rarely until the total triumph of the aria around 1670".

[46] The opening repeated words "Lasciatemi morire" (Let me die) are accompanied by a dominant seventh chord which Ringer describes as "an unforgettable chromatic stab of pain"; Monteverdi was one of the first users of this musical device.

[50] Monteverdi himself used the expressive lament format in each of his two late operas, Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria and L'incoronazione di Poppea, for the respective characters of Penelope and Ottavia.

In 1641 Monteverdi adapted Arianna's lament into a sacred song with a Latin text "Pianto della Madonna" (incipit: "Iam moriar, mi fili"), which he included in Selva morale e spirituale, the last of his works published during his lifetime.

Among leading singers who have issued recordings are the sopranos Emma Kirkby and Véronique Gens, and the mezzo-sopranos Janet Baker and Anne Sofie von Otter.