Salome unveiled

by Piet De Volder, Fri, Nov 15, 2024

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At the decadent court of Herod Antipas, the attractive and headstrong princess Salome turns heads, not in the least that of Herod himself, her stepfather. For him, after much insistence, she dances the erotic ‘Dance of the seven veils’. But despite her gradual revelation, Salome remains unpredictable and elusive. We lift some veils from Richard Strauss's operatic persona, her Biblical and literary inspirations and from Ersan Mondtag's new production.

1 — BIBLE

There are few operas in which well-known Biblical characters get in your face as much as in Richard Strauss's opera Salome. Up front: the prophet and preacher John the Baptist (Jochanaän in the opera). He baptised Jesus Christ in the Jordan River and was imprisoned by King Herod Antipas for criticising Herod's supposedly illegal and ‘sinful’ marriage. In fact, Herod Antipas had remarried Herodias, the ex of his half-brother Herod Philip. Herod Antipas and Herod Philip were scions of the unpopular Herodian dynasty, which ruled the (then) Jewish land from the 1st century BC to the 1st century AD, in the service of the Roman Empire. Herod Antipas was a vassal prince, dependent on the Roman emperor. He is known from the gospels as the man who had John the Baptist put to death and may have contributed to Christ's execution. Christ himself is not in the opera - that was completely unthinkable in the theatrical practice of the time - but his coming as the Messiah is proclaimed by John in a loud voice. At the end of the opera, John's head is presented on a platter as a reward for a dance performed by Herod's stepdaughter Salome for the monarch. That macabre event is also evoked in the Bible, albeit briefly, and without mentioning Salome by name. The historian Flavius Josephus does identify ‘the daughter of Herodias’, as evangelists Mark and Matthew describe her, as Salome.

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Salome, Titiaan, ca 1515

2 — PIECE OF SCANDAL

John's not very happy ending is the climax of the opera and of the play by Irish writer and dandy Oscar Wilde, on which Strauss based himself. The flowery play Salomé, written in French, was published in 1893. Wilde would never live to see a performance of it because the only performances of Salomé during his lifetime took place in 1896, at the Théâtre de la Comédie-Parisienne (today Athénée Théâtre Louis-Jouvet), when the writer was in custody for ‘illegal homosexual activities’. Salomé, which also appeared in an English translation by Wilde's partner Lord Alfred Douglas, gained the reputation of a scandalous play. Public performances were banned in England for a long time, until around 1931. The moral objections to Wilde's play were conveniently hidden behind the ban on bringing Biblical characters on stage.

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Oscar Wilde

3 — UNDER THE SPELL OF WILDE

In November 1902, Richard Strauss attended a German-language version of the play at the Kleines Theater in Berlin, directed by theatre legend Max Reinhardt and featuring the then equally legendary actress Gertrud Eysoldt in the title role. The 38-year-old composer was so captivated by the work that he attended several performances. On 9 December 1905, Strauss' opera premiered at the Königliches Opernhaus in Dresden. Despite its resounding success, the opera also gained a reputation as a scandal piece, with the prevailing opinion becoming: beautiful music but a thoroughly immoral subject. Not only did the Church oppose performances, several theatres also dropped out.

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Richard Strauss

4 — ‘DANCE OF DEATH’

One thing is certain: Wilde gave great dramatic weight to what has been handed down to us from the Bible and the chronicle of Flavius Josephus as a short episode without much context. Yet we can hardly call the presentation of a severed head at a banquet in honour of Herod's birthday a fait divers. Wilde spun around the dryly transmitted facts a web of sultry, erotic relationships. Salome, for instance, becomes completely captivated by the fiercely fulminating John. She wants to touch him and kiss his mouth. Herod in turn lusts after his stepdaughter and gets her to perform the ‘Dance of the seven veils’. In Strauss's score, the dance grew into a rousing orchestral interlude with an orientalist colouring. It became the hit of the opera. Even though Salome dances for Herod, her thoughts are with John, the music also underlines. Salome's seductive dance heralds both John's death and her own downfall.

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Salome, Franz von Stuck, 1906.

5 — GENDER BENDING

Remarkably, Salome first falls under the spell of John's voice and only then does she manage to speak to him face to face. To do so, she has to convince Narraboth, the head of the palace guard, to bring the prophet out of his underground dungeon. Narraboth, who thereby violates a ban by Herod, has to listen to Salome, in a language that overtly evokes the Biblical Song of Songs, sing of the physical beauty of the fanatical ascetic with an excess of imagery. It becomes too powerful for Narraboth. Filled with lust for the princess, he lashes out at himself. Salome's attempt to seduce the prophet is one of the samples of gender bending with which Wilde peppered his play. When Salome sings of John's body, mouth and hair, she appropriates the ‘male gaze’: the way a man revels in a woman's sex appeal. John's resolute rejection of the ‘depraved’ princess will cost him dearly.

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Performance of the 1913 opera Salome in Copenhagen

6 — ‘FEMME FATALE’

From Oscar Wilde's linguistic work, Richard Strauss distilled a thrilling one-act in four scenes that seamlessly merge through instrumental interludes. As with Wagner, the orchestra has an active, dramatic role. The more compact format makes the opera read like an erotic thriller, which nowhere loses momentum. Ersan Mondtag focuses on the political thriller fermenting under the surface of the story: the social and political turmoil that puts Herod's dictatorship under high tension and the religious conflicts that John's preaching provokes. The director drew inspiration from parallels between the historical Herod and Alexander Lukashenko, president of Belarus. Both are vassal princes in the service of a higher power. Just as Herod depended on Emperor Tiberius, Lukashenko is Putin's puppet. They are weak but cruel subdictators who translate the cult of the Great Leader into megalomaniacal structures. That is why Herod's palace, built in the vein of post-socialist propaganda architecture, dominates Mondtag's set. While the outside of the palace exudes an atmosphere of indoctrination and repression, decadence reigns inside, which ultimately brings down Herod and his court.

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Rita Hayworth as Salome in the 1953 film by the same name

7 — THRILLER

From Oscar Wilde's linguistic work, Richard Strauss distilled a thrilling one-act in four scenes that seamlessly merge through instrumental interludes. As with Wagner, the orchestra has an active, dramatic role. The more compact format makes the opera read like an erotic thriller, which nowhere loses momentum. Ersan Mondtag focuses on the political thriller fermenting under the surface of the story: the social and political turmoil that puts Herod's dictatorship under high tension and the religious conflicts that John's preaching provokes. The director drew inspiration from parallels between the historical Herod and Alexander Lukashenko, president of Belarus. Both are vassal princes in the service of a higher power. Just as Herod depended on Emperor Tiberius, Lukashenko is Putin's puppet. They are weak but cruel subdictators who translate the cult of the Great Leader into megalomaniacal structures. That is why Herod's palace, built in the vein of post-socialist propaganda architecture, dominates Mondtag's set. While the outside of the palace exudes an atmosphere of indoctrination and repression, decadence reigns inside, which ultimately brings down Herod and his court.

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Costume design for Salome by Ersan Mondtag
Opera new production
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Antwerp | Gent

Salome

Richard Strauss

Info and tickets
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