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Richard Strauss Salumage was a real scandal success during his first in 1905 and for a few years afterwards. The Metropolitan Opera of New York reached the scoring in 1907, but the daughter of the financier and powerful member of the JP Morgan board of directors was so indignant that she was withdrawn as a result of a single performance and did not hear again in this house before 1934. Today, the directors often went at free extremes to preserve the 2022 of the opera in Paris in Paris in Paris in Paris in Paris in Paris in Paris in Paris in Paris in Paris in Paris in Paris in Paris in Paris in Paris 2022, in the dance of the Seven made the Bastille opera in Paris at 2022, in which the Disodia made for the Veil Bastille in Paris in 2022, in which the dance of the Seven made for the Bastille de Veil with a gang rape.
This Parisian staging was created for the South African soprano Elza van den Helver, as is the new metropolitan production led by Claus Guth, during his beginnings to the Chamber. However, unlike Steier, who focused on the debauchery of the court of Herod, making him with an incessant demonstration of horrible acts, Guth transforms the opera into a psycho-sexual examination of the origins of the depravity of Salomé. With a Matt-Black set of Etienne Pluss imagining the interior of a vast Victorian manor, the atmosphere is a Gothic horror.
Guth has rewritten many instructions on Strauss's stage to assert his point of view. Even before the music begins, we see Salome as a young child playing with a doll. Even after the slowdown, as Narraboth, captain of the guards, sings with a tip of the beauty of Salomé, he still sings to this child – who is replaced by Van den Heleer a few minutes later.
Regarding debauchery, there are naked party guests carrying animal heads wandering on an landing at the top, but these seem a director after the fact. Instead, what is really shocking is the progressive suggestion of sexual abuse, culminating in the dance of the seven sails, with which Salomé asks Herode to give him the head of Jochanaan (Jean-Baptiste). Here, dance is interpreted by seven ascending age saloms. It was not at all what Strauss imagined (and there were hooks mixed with cheers when Guth took his bow) but he managed to make Salomeable Salomeable as it is monstrous.
The crowd of the opening evening was roaring when Van Den Heéner took his bow, and rightly so. His Salomé was each thumb a damaged and demanding teenager, helped by the suspicion of steel in his differently warm and pure tone. Peter Mattei brought a suspicion of welcome vulnerability to Jochanaan's justice, although the projected amplification to project his voice from the dungeon gave him an unpleasant and metallic advantage. The Herod of Gerhard Siegel was more disturbed than lascivious, but a virtuoso display nevertheless, and the ardent narraboth of Piotr Buszewski was another star.
Salumage was described as a poem of tone with voices. Sometimes the balance between the scene and the pit was far from ideal, with several almost inaudible vocal passages. But the conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin conveyed the dramatic scanning of the score and also aroused the most polite game I heard from the MET orchestra this season.
★★★★ ☆
At May 24, Metopera.org
