Oh the curtains will be coming up on Salome tonight at the Vancouver Opera.
It is an opera in one act so it’s hard for me to gauge when things will be happening timewise so I’ll tell you a little about it.
Salome, the opera, is by Richard Strauss, the libretto by Hedwig Lachmann, and it’s based on Oscar Wilde’s stage poem of the same name.
We start on the roof-top terrace. Narraboth, the young captain of the guard, watches the stepdaughter of Herod, Salome, at a banquet in the palace. He is besotted.
Salome’s father, Herod, has imprisoned John the Baptist. Amidst the sound of bickering banquet guests is the sound of John the Baptist prophesying the coming of the Messiah. John is usually portrayed as a strange man, think homeless with crazy hair. I’ll be interested in how this John is costumed.
The banquet is a bore. Salome leaves, hears the prophet, and decided to seek him out. He’s cursing her mother’s poor lifestyle choices (marrying the brother who killed her husband, you know how it is in these operas).
John is brought before Salome, who is reacts with a teenager reaction of freaky fascination. She wants to touch his skin, his hair, his lips. She’s obsessed. It’s rude. It’s weird. Then she wants a kiss. The prophet curses her.
Oh that besotted captain dies at some point here, which sets off Herod’s series of bizarre hallucinations. Depending on the staging, this is one of those stories that might be comprehensible if seen stoned. It’s a bit of a trip.
All of this leads up to the Dance of the Seven Veils.
This is where the nudity happens. Salome does a bit of a strip tease dance, and her reward is the execution of any of her heart’s desires, which happens to be the head of the prophet on a silver platter. Take a toke.
Her father freaks out and offers jewels, peacocks, half his kingdom, even the sacred veil of the Temple of the Jews, but Salome is determined.
There’s a bit of a necrophilia kissing of the severed head, which disgusted everyone and leads to Salome’s own death.
As I said, it’s a controversial and wildly seductive and erotic opera. I’ve seen it as a play, read it as a poem and watched it as a film. I would very much like to hear it as an opera because I bet the voices are powerful and strong.