Salome

A superb musical performance is undermined by quirky direction in this 2018 Salzburg Festival staging of Richard Strauss’s bombastic but powerful 1905 opera, which is based on the biblical story of the beheading of John the Baptist. In adapting Oscar Wilde’s titular play, the young Strauss reveled in the fraught psychological issues involving King Herod, who lusts after his stepdaughter Salome. Her demand for the head of John as the price of her famous dance of the seven veils horrifies the monarch but is encouraged by her mother Herodias. Romeo Castellucci’s conception updates the story, apparently to the early 20th century, with the characters’ faces partially painted in red or green (Salome, in a slinky white dress, is an exception). John appears in a furry suit resembling the lower half of a bear costume, with feathers in his mottled hair. A motif of stones and stables, both related to the Felsenreitschule (the performance space), regularly intrudes. Salome does not dance at all, but remains bound nearly naked to a huge brick (emblazoned with the word "Saxa") as a second brick is lowered to crush her. At another point she wears a saddle, and a live horse frolics behind her. Eventually, Salome is presented not with John’s head but the horse’s while she sits beside the Baptist’s headless torso. What all this is meant to convey is anyone’s guess, but it obscures a fine performance in which Franz Welser-Möst leads the Vienna Philharmonic in a highly sensual reading of the opulent score. And Asmik Grigorian excels in both vocal and dramatic terms as Salome, while the other singers provide excellent support. Presented in DTS 5.1 (DTS-HD 5.1 on the Blu-ray release) and PCM stereo, this is a strong optional purchase. (F. Swietek)