RICHARD STRAUSS (1864–1949)
Salome, Op. 54
Scored for three flutes and piccolo, two oboes, English horn and heckelphone (a baritone oboe-like instrument), E-flat clarinet, two A clarinets, two B-flat clarinets and bass clarinet, three bassoons and contrabassoon, six horns, four trumpets, four trombones, bass tuba, timpani, tam-tam, cymbals, bass drum, snare drum, tambourine, triangle, xylophone, castanet, glockenspiel, celesta, offstage organ and harmonium and strings.
In his third opera—more properly, a “music drama in one act”—Strauss took the femme fatale type to unprecedented extremes of lust and violence with his young, seductive and depraved Salome. Her fascinating character has evolved over the past two millennia. The biblical accounts in Matthew 14:6–11 and Mark 6:17–29 provide a historical and literary starting point for the legend. John the Baptist has been thrown in prison for loudly denouncing the adulterous relationship between Herodias, the divorced wife of Herod Philip, and her brother-in-law, Herod Antipas, the Tetrarch of Judea. Herodias’s daughter— unnamed in the Gospels but identified as Salome in Flavius Josephus’s Antiquities of the Jews—dances before Herod on his birthday. Pleased by her sensuous gyrations, the governor promises to grant one wish. At her mother’s urging, she demands John’s head on a platter. Herod regrets his vow but orders the decapitation to fulfill his oath before the dinner guests. Soldiers present Salome the head, and she delivers it to Herodias.
New details entered this story during the Middle Ages. Herodias’s personage merged with Salome’s in some accounts, and the Queen’s quest for vengeance began when John spurned her sexual advances, not her daughter’s. Renaissance artists became fixated with Salome; their oil-on-canvas representations explored the complex psychological makeup of this virgin-vixen who was simultaneously the chaste accomplice in her mother’s schemes and the lithe object of Herod’s lustful desires. During the 19th century, French artists such as the painter Gustave Moreau and the writers Maurice Maeterlinck and Gustave Flaubert combined Herodias’s sexual desires with her daughter’s balletic charms.
Oscar Wilde, the Irish-born writer exiled to France after his conviction and imprisonment for homosexual behavior, fully formulated the cruel, lustful and perverse (in Wilde’s words) “modern” Salome. His 1892 French play Salomé sparked controversy from the very beginning. Theaters throughout England and France banned the work because of its treatment of a biblical subject. Wilde originally created the title role for Sarah Bernhardt but government censors even forbade her from appearing onstage as Salome. However, one year after the author’s death in 1900, the play was staged in Germany.
On November 11, 1902, Richard Strauss attended Max Reinhardt’s acclaimed production of Salome, in a translation by Hedwig Lachmann, at the Kleines Theater in Berlin. The play made an immediate impact on the composer. After the performance Heinrich Grünfeld encouraged Strauss to write an opera based on Wilde’s drama, to which he replied, “I am already busy composing it.” Strauss completed his draft in September 1904 and dated the full score on June 20, 1905, although at least one critical portion had not been completed—the Dance of the Seven Veils.
Alma Mahler, wife of composer-conductor Gustav and an accomplished composer in her own right, remembered a private reading of the score given by Strauss in May at the Alsatian Music Festival. (At one time, Strauss considered delegating the premiere to Mahler, but Viennese censors objected to the opera. The first performance took place instead on December 9, 1905, at Dresden’s Hofoper under the direction of Ernst von Schuch.) Alma described the private preview: “Strauss played and sang incomparably well. Mahler was overwhelmed. We came to the dance—it was missing. ‘Haven’t got it done yet,’ Strauss said, and he played on to the end, leaving this yawning gap. ‘Isn’t it rather risky,’ Mahler remarked, ‘simply leaving out the dance and then writing it in later when you’re not in the same mood?’ Strauss laughed his lighthearted laugh: ‘I’ll fix that all right.’”
Strauss easily completed the dance before the premiere. Until recently his detailed choreographic instructions (sketched in the 1920s) remained largely unheeded. Most of the time Strauss has Salome sway or move in slow, alluring steps onstage; occasionally, she whirls around and swiftly removes the veils. Curiously, Strauss instructed the removal of only five veils as Salome beckons to both Herod and Jochanaan (John the Baptist). The composer’s instructions provide insight into his understanding of the young woman: “Anyone who has been in the East and has observed the decorum with which women there behave will appreciate that Salome, being a chaste virgin and an oriental princess, must be played with the simplest and most restrained of gestures, unless her defeat by the miracle of a great world is to excite only disgust and terror instead of sympathy.” Strauss imagined a far more human figure than is typically portrayed.
Synopsis
Scene 1. A great terrace in the Palace of Herod, set above the banquet hall. Several soldiers lean over the balcony. To the right is a gigantic staircase, to the left, in the background, an old cistern with a railing of green bronze. The moon shines very brightly.
Strauss omits the traditional orchestral overture. Instead two sinuous clarinet scales sweep the audience directly into the action. Narraboth, the young Syrian captain of the guard, admires Salome’s sensual figure and pale face, which are illuminated by the moonlight (“Wie schon ist die Prinzessin Salome heute nacht!” [“How beautiful is the princess Salome tonight!”]). The Page of Herodias warns the lustful youth to avoid this “lifeless woman” because he fears terrible things may happen (“Schreckliches kann geschehn”). Soldiers complain about the seemingly endless, rancorous religious debate among the Jews.
The voice of Jochanaan thunders from the cistern where he has been imprisoned: “Nach mir wird Einer kommen, der ist starker als ich” (“After me shall come another, one far mightier than I”). His prophecy terrifies the soldiers; one wants him silenced, the other remains awed by the holy man. The Cappadocian is intrigued and wants to know more about Jochanaan. Salome rises from the dinner table and storms down to the cistern. The Page warns his companions not to stare at her.
Scene 2. Salome arrives in an excited state.
Salome rushes outside the palace to escape her stepfather’s lecherous stares. The Page predicts doom. From deep within the black cistern, Jochanaan loudly proclaims the coming of the son of man. Salome inquires about the mysterious captive who makes “foul accusations” against her mother. Is he old and gray? No, says one soldier, he is quite young. She desperately wants to see the prisoner and orders the soldiers to bring him out. Fearing the penalty for disobeying the Tetrarch, they refuse. Herod sends a slave to retrieve Salome, who more forcefully insists on seeing the prophet. Once again, the Page predicts terrible consequences. Salome approaches Narraboth with a seductive voice (“Du wirst das für mich tun, Narraboth, nicht wahr?” [“Won’t you do this for me, Narraboth?”]). Narraboth resists at first but cannot withstand her devious petitions and orders the guards to retrieve Jochanaan.
Scene 3. The prophet comes out of the cistern. Salome, absorbed by his appearance, slowly steps back.
Jochanaan denounces the man whose sins are without number (“Wo ist er, dessen Sundenbecher jetzt voll ist?”). Salome wonders of whom he speaks. The prophet continues by accusing the woman who surrendered to lust and incest. Clearly, the young princess understands: Jochanaan condemns her mother. Salome stares at his black eyes and pale skin. Johanaan orders the young girl to veil herself and repent, to cover herself in ashes and to seek the son of man in the desert. His admonition further arouses Salome’s passion, and she blurts out an indecent confession of love (“Jochanaan! Ich bin verliebt in deinen Leib” [“Jochanaan! I desire your body!”]). Jochanaan angrily rejects the “daughter of Babylon.”
On closer examination, Salome notices his leprous skin and matted hair. Lust drives Salome to desire a kiss from his red mouth (“Deinen Mund begehre ich, Jochanaan”). Narraboth beseeches the princess to leave. When his pleading fails, the captain of the guard kills himself with a knife. Jochanaan declares that only one man can save the accursed (“Du bist verflucht”) Salome now—the holy savior.
Scene 4. Herod enters hastily, followed by Herodias
As Herod seeks his absent stepdaughter in the garden, Herodias accuses him of staring at Salome. The Tetrarch invites his guests to drink wine on carpets laid on the ground. Herod slips on blood before noticing Narraboth’s dead body. He feels a cold wind and perceives a sound like a giant vulture’s wings; his wife feels and hears nothing. Herod bids Salome join him in a drink of wine (“Salome, komm, trink Wein mit mir”) and taste of fruit. The princess rebuffs his advances.
Jochanaan declares that the prophecy has been fulfilled (“Siehe, die Zeit ist gekommen, der Tag, von dem ich sprach, ist da” [“See, the time has come, the day of which I spoke is here”]). Herodias accuses Herod of fearing the prophet. A group of Jews debates whether anyone since Elijah—or even Elijah himself—has ever seen God. Herod shares a rumor circulating throughout the land that Jochanaan is the prophet Elijah, a statement that sparks further deliberation. Jochanaan claims to hear the footsteps of the son of man, whom Herod forbids from performing miracles. Jochanaan resumes his attack on Herodias’s adultery. She implores Herod to silence the prophet and to defend her.
Instead the Tetrarch asks Salome to dance for him (“Tanz für mich, Salome”). The princess refuses, until Herod offers her anything she desires and swears an oath on his own life, kingdom and the gods. Herodias orders her daughter not to dance, but the young princess summons the slave girls to apply ointment and the veils and to remove her sandals.
Salome’s Dance. The musicians begin a wild dance. Salome, at first motionless, rises to her full height and makes a sign to the musicians, at which they begin a wild rhythm instantly then transition to a soft and swaying tune. Salome dances the Dance of the Seven Veils. She appears to faint for a moment, then pulls herself together with new strength. She remains for an instant in a visionary attitude near the cistern where Jochanaan is held prisoner, then she throws herself at Herod’s feet.
After the dance is finished, Salome reveals her diabolical request: the head of Jochanaan on a silver platter. Herodias delights in the request (“My dear daughter, you are inspired”) while Herod struggles to change her mind. Salome reminds her stepfather of the oath he swore before the banquet guests. Herod offers other valuable treasures because the “head of a human, hacked from off his body, would be foul to look on.” Salome persists in demanding the head of Jochanaan. Herod relents. Herodias removes the Ring of Death from his hand and dispatches the First Soldier to take it to the executioner.
Salome leans over the edge of the cistern but hears no sound below, no begging or pleading from the condemned prophet. She detects a dull noise of something falling on the stones. Perhaps it was the timid headsman Naaman’s sword. Salome orders the Page into the cistern to claim her prize. Just then, the black arm of the executioner emerges with the head of Jochanaan on a silver shield.
Salome grabs the severed head and begins an appalling monologue (“Ah! Du wolltest mich nicht deinen Mund kussen lassen, Jochanaan!” [“Ah! You who would not allow me to kiss your mouth, Jochanaan”]). Unable to command his attention in life, she painstakingly mocks him in death. Salome addresses the closed eyes that never met her gaze and praises his white-pillared body. And his blood-red lips, which she vainly begged to kiss, Salome now tastes in all their bitterness. Herod Antipas— the same man to whom Pontius Pilate later would send the accused Jesus—cannot bear this immoral display and orders his stepdaughter’s death. Herod’s soldiers crush the “evil monster” beneath their shields.
—Program notes © Todd E. Sullivan 2014
