Ariadne auf Naxos (Ariadne on Naxos), Op. 60, is an opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Bringing together slapstick comedy and consummately beautiful music, the opera's theme is the competition between high and low art for the public's attention. Music critic and author Matt Dobkin wrote that, while Ariadne auf Naxos is "not as well loved as Der Rosenkavalier or as important as Salome, it is nevertheless staged all the time, thanks in large part to sopranos' attraction to the vocal and dramatic grandeur of the title role and to the compelling spitfire Zerbinetta character."

The opera was originally conceived as a thirty-minute divertissement to be performed at the end of Hofmannsthal's adaptation of Molière's play Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. Besides the opera, Strauss provided incidental music to be performed during the play. In the end, the opera occupied ninety minutes, and the performance of play plus opera occupied over six hours. It was first performed at the Hoftheater, Stuttgart, on 25 October 1912. The director was Max Reinhardt. The combination of the play and opera proved to be unsatisfactory to the audience: those who had come to hear the opera resented having to wait until the play finished.

After these initial performances, it became apparent that the work as it stood was impractical: it required a company of actors as well as an opera company, and was thus very expensive to mount, and its length was likely to be a problem for audiences. So in 1913 Hofmannsthal proposed to Strauss that the play should be replaced by a prologue which would explain why the opera combines a serious classical story with a comedy performed by a commedia dell'arte group. He also moved the action from Paris to Vienna. Strauss was initially reluctant, but he composed the prologue (and modified some aspects of the opera) in 1916, and this revised version was first performed at the Vienna State Opera on 4 October of that year. This is the version that is normally staged today, although the original play-plus-opera is occasionally performed (for example, at the 1997 Edinburgh International Festival and at the 2012 Salzburg Festival).

After its premiere in Vienna, the second version was first performed in Berlin on 1 November 1916, followed by Zürich on 28 January 1917 (in a production by the Mannheim Opera). It was first presented in Budapest on 19 April 1919 (in a Hungarian translation by Z. Harsányi), and in German in Graz on 12 March 1920, Amsterdam in January 1924, and London at the Royal Opera House on 27 May 1924 with Lotte Lehmann as Ariadne, Maria Ivogün as Zerbinetta (in her debut with the company), Elisabeth Schumann as the Composer, Karl Fischer-Niemann as Bacchus, and Carl Alwin conducting. Despite the stellar cast, the production was not successful, with one of the lowest box office returns of the season, and was repeated only once.

It was first performed in Italy in Turin at the Teatro di Turino (it) on 7 December 1925 (in an Italian translation by O. Schanzer); in Sweden in Stockholm on 27 November 1926 (in Swedish); in Brussels on 17 March 1930 (in a French translation by P. Spaak); in Helsinki on 12 May 1931 (in a Finnish translation by A. af Enehjelm); in Rome at the Teatro Reale on 28 March 1935 (in German); Antwerp on 28 September 1935 (in Flemish); and in Paris at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées on 10 September 1937 (in German).

The United States premiere of the opera was given in German by the Philadelphia Civic Opera Company at the Academy of Music on 1 November 1928. Conducted by Alexander Smallens, the cast included Alma Peterson as the Primadonna/Ariadne, Charlotte Boykin as Zerbinetta, Irene Williams as the Composer, and Judson House as the Tenor/Bacchus. It was presented by the Juilliard School in New York City in English in a translation by A. Kalisch on 5 December 1934 with a cast of students including Josephine Antoine as Zerbinetta, Mack Harrell as Truffaldino, and Risë Stevens as Dryad. The opera was performed for the first time in Canada by the New York City Opera on tour at the Montreal Festivals in 1946.