Our Road Scholar program included tickets to two operas. After the first one, a few of us thought “in for a penny, in for a pound” and decided to get tickets to one more opera on one of the free evenings.
This is one of the fantastic things about the Met Opera - they have several productions all going on at the same time. In my town, the local opera company does four productions a year, each one runs for two weeks straight. But you could go to the Met and see five different operas over the course of a week. The opera on our free night was Salome, and bonus, it was a premiere.
Salome started as a Bible story. John the Baptist, the guy who paved the way for Jesus, was imprisoned by Herod. Herod’s step daughter did a dance for him. As payment for the dance (and influenced by her mother, who was upset that John had denounced her marriage), she demanded John the Baptist’s head on a platter. In the 1890’s, Oscar Wilde wrote a play based on the story. It followed the same general plot line but added an element of Salome having a sexual infatuation with the prophet (who is named Jokanaan in the play, but clearly intended to be John the Baptist). It was widely banned.
The Bible did not go into details about the dance, but Wilde’s play referred to it as “the dance of the seven veils”. From Wikipedia: “Wilde transforms the dance from a public performance for his guests, as in the Bible, to a personal dance for the king himself. He gives no description of the dance beyond the name, but the idea of a series of veils has been connected to a process of unveiling. As Shireen Malik says, "although Wilde does not describe Salome's dance or suggest that she remove any veils, her dance is invariably assumed to be one of unveiling, thus revealing herself." Wilde's play has even been proposed as the origin of striptease. “
Meanwhile in 1905 Richard Strauss premiered an opera based on Wilde’s play. Audiences were shocked by the combination of Biblical story with erotic themes. Interestingly, in many productions the dance of the seven veils was performed by a separate actress, a dancer. It makes sense since the skill set (and build) of an opera singer and a dancer are quite different. Fast forward to this new production. It added elements that provided somewhat of a back story to Salome’s admittedly unhinged behavior. This production had Salome, the soprano - but there were also six “mini-me’s” of Salome who often appeared silently alongside her. They were all dressed like her and had the same hair (bleached blonde with dark roots) so it was clear they were intended to be progressively younger versions of her.
The other thing that changed was that the production was set in Victorian times rather than biblical times. Salome wears a prim black dress with a white lace collar much of the time. Her stepfather, Herod, wears a 1890’s style suit. The Herod household is quite creepy. There are men walking around wearing black ram’s heads (one of the reviews I read said that it was intended to present kind of a debauched “Eyes Wide Shut” atmosphere). At times the ram’s head guys paraded past on a balcony shepherding a nude woman.
So we get to the dance of the seven veils. Instead of a peeling off of the veils, it’s a dance of seven different Salomes- starting with the youngest one and moving forward, each dance getting progressively more erotic. What emerges is a clear picture that Salome’s stepfather groomed her. The subtext is already there - Salome’s mother frequently sings “why do you keep looking at her? Stop looking at her that way!” But the dance makes it quite explicit. There is no striptease by the way, everyone remains clothed. One of the ram’s head guys serves as a “stand in” for Herod in the dance.
If you thought that was creepy, just wait for the final scene where Salome sings to Jokaanen’s head about how she wants to kiss his lips. Eeeek. It was definitely a rather intense evening. Not the kind of production that I would normally seek out, but I’m glad I went.
Here is a snippet from the dress rehearsal where Salome is trying to seduce Jokaanen. Spoiler alert, he's not having any of it!
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9 comments
Interesting...bizarre.
Weird and dark adaptation. Your description does give off an "Eyes Wide Shut" vibe.
I didn’t ever see that movie but have a general idea of the themes. And yes, somehow they managed to make a pretty dark opera even darker!
@smartasswoman
You didn't miss anything by not seeing the movie.
So, not something coming to MSP any time in the near future?
Probably not, although it’s not like our opera company does only traditional works (and this one actually could be considered traditional, since it was composed over 100 years ago - just a different treatment).
That is a fantastic review of the opera. I initially thought it was a BDSM scene! But opera singing is magical.
She did have quite an amazing voice.
This seems….familiar.
Opera isn’t my thing but it really is a tale as old as time itself, sadly.
To other readers, Enigma kindly helped me with my draft post since I was concerned it might not be approved.
It's definitely a familiar tale, and a back story that I found quite credible as a reason for her behavior.