Recognition and reflection of the radially structured semantic intertextual raster in the opera Ariadne auf Naxos Op. 60 by Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal, are the goals of this paper, with the awareness that ‘reading’ of this complex textual amalgam cannot be comprehensive and that this is only one of the possible ways of looking at different languages, their texts, and relationships in which they come in, with the emphasis on the connection between the music and architectural texts. The focus is to spot some of the paths in this specific music-scenic maze. The recognition of the ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ opera house implies the withdrawal of the parallels between the music-dramatic and the architectural level. The concept of ‘opera within the opera’ is simultaneously present in the musical-dramatic sphere (opera Ariadne in opera Ariadne auf Naxos) and in the architectural sphere (opera/residential house in the opera house). By concurring with the different meaning of the word ‘opera’ which it has in the music-drama (opera as a musical-drama work) and architectural language (opera as an architectural object), we carry out the terms meta-opera ‘per square’ (‘metaopera’) and meta-opera ‘per cube’ (‘metaopera’).

In this paper, the ballet of Igor Stravinsky The Rite of Spring is interpreted from the perspective of Gaston Bachelard’s philosophical thought. Bachelard’s systematic psychoanalysis of literary images in The Psychoanalysis of Fire is applied to the interpretation of musical images in The Rite of Spring. Bearing in mind that rhythm is a key characteristic of Stravinsky’s composition, the paper analyses the immediate correspondences between Stravinsky’s and Bachelard’s perception and interpretation of rhythm in the works under consideration.