Mark Wigglesworth. Conductor; Lydia Steier, Director; Momme Hinrichs, Set design and video; Andy Besuch, Costume design; Olaf Freese, Lighting design. Lise Davidsen, Salome; Johan Reuter, Jochanaan; Gerhard Siegel, Herodes; Ekaterina Gubanova, Herodias; Pavol Breslik, Narraboth
I have never been to an opera in Paris before, and don’t have a clear idea of how the set-up of ‘The Paris Opera’ works. The Bastille building is new, massive and prominent in the life of the city – its steep steps outside seem to be a major hanging out space for Parisians, The auditorium is large, but the acoustics from where I was sitting were good (in the back of the stalls – however I did wonder how a Mozart opera would feel and sound here. Maybe they do them somewhere else). After an afternoon spent at the Pere Lachaise cemetery, saying hello to Oscar (appropriately given that his play is the basis for Salome), I did wonder how full the auditorium would be as I entered this large building. Absolutely packed is the answer! Clearly Parisians saw this as a major event, and in addition around me I could hear English, Australian, US, Dutch and German voices – people from all over the place coming to hear Ms Davidsen in this new role – and the cast as you can see doesn’t only offer star quality in Lise Davidsen – Johann Reuter I saw singing Sachs in Berlin in November and Edita Guberova is singing Venus and Kundry this year in Bayreuth. Gerhard Siegel, too, is distinguished – a Bayreuth Mime but also with heldentenor roles in his repertoire. One newspaper article likened Lise Davidsen’s singing Salome in Paris to Taylor Swift singing in a Parisian stadium nearby in terns of both being mega-events!
I may have heard Salome at ROHCG with Grace Bumbry or Hildegard Behrens in the title role and Solti/Mehta and others conducting, in the 70’s. If so I have no memory of the performances. The Salome I remember from my youth is the ENO one, with Josephine Barstow and Mackerras, which I chiefly remember for Barstow’s acting. Many years then followed when I never saw a performance – until ?2018 when I saw a disastrous production at ENO (the one with the bloody headless pink pony – say no more) which I don’t want to recall, and now this……..
I thought this was a marvellous performance, dramatically as well as musically. The set was of a large stone-like wall with an upper room above it where some sort of orgiastic event is happening. Part of the wall moves away just before Salome’s dance and in its place there’s a series of steps down which Herod’s courtiers tumble to watch the fun. Costumes are basically fantastical with a mad Afro wig and short skirt for Herodias. Narraboth and other guards wear black special forces gear and have automatic weapons – and Narraboth and Herod both die by pistol. Dead bodies in body bags regularly appear hauled down the steps from the upper room steps and are carried off by 3 persons in Hazmat gear. Occasionally a skimpily clothed young woman is dragged up to the upper room. All in all an oppressive utterly amoral culture is being portrayed. Salome in the earlier part of the opera is the fairly conventional difficult teenager. Her encounter with Jokanaan takes place with him in a cage that is lifted from the cistern. After their encounter Salome writhes on the ground in a fairly obviously sexual way. The point at which this production became very interesting was the Dance of the Seven Veils. I had been wondering how this would be done – Lise Davidsen is a fairly statuesque figure whom it would be difficult to envisage racing round the stage shedding veils. It may of course by now be a standard way of handling this sequence, but I found the approach in this production very convincing – essentially the Dance is turned into a slow motion sexual assault by Herod on Salome, slowly removing her clothing at first (pocketing her knickers) and as the music grows faster and louder the rest of the court join in, performing a choreographed orgasm – one critic suggests she ravishes Herod but I’m not sure that’s how it felt for me. It’s not clear what’s happening to Salome, but she emerges at the end with her dress blood-stained. The other interesting aspect of the production is the last 5 minutes or so: a second Salome is on the ground kissing the head and writhing; the ‘real’ Salome suddenly emerges from the ground in the cage with Jokanaan, in loving embrace. I am not quite sure what the director is intending to ‘say’ here, but it gives far more weight to what Salome is singing and is a far better ‘objective correlative’ to what is happening on stage than the normal way (albeit the ‘normal’ way is what’s outlined in the stage directions. To me the way this is handled (a) makes Salome more of a victim of a terrible culture and less a product of it; (b) gives Salome a stature she doesn’t have when she’s simply rolling around the stage with a bloody head. I’d not come across the director before – she’s an American who’s worked mainly in Germany, initially with the Komische Oper.
Lise Davidsen was quite remarkable as Salome. She has a natural stage presence, which she used very effectively as the grand but demanding princess. Her singing was extraordinary – sailing over the orchestra in the climatic moments, with also many beautifully and softly sung phrases. I really don’t think I’ve ever heard it better sung, not even by Nilsson. Johann Reuter sounded fuller and warmer than I remember from Berlin – a nuanced and utterly appropriate rendering. Edita Gubanova has a powerful voice and projected well into the auditorium, even in the loudest passages. Gerhard Siegel didn’t overdo it and absolutely came across as the slimy unpleasant individual Herod is, with a strong bright tone to his voice.
Mark Wigglesworth, now going to the Bournemouth Symphony as chief conductor, was an excellent conductor of this work – not a Solti reading, but grand, loud and frenetic where it needed to be and while maybe a bit on the slow side never lost focus. He had an excellent orchestra too
I would be very surprised if this did not feature as one of my top ten performances of the year….The audience went bonkers at the end……
Very generously, Paris Opera have put these trailer videos up on YouTube. They do give a very good flavour of the excellence of singing and acting
[EXTRAIT] SALOME by Richard Strauss (Lise Davidsen, Johann Reuter – “Wer ist dies weib”) – YouTube
Note the guys in the HazMat suits in the second video, resting from picking up the dead bodies in Herod’s court
[EXTRAIT] SALOMÉ by Richard Strauss (youtube.com)
[EXTRAIT] SALOME by Richard Strauss (Lise Davidsen – “Es ist kein laut zu vernehmen”) – YouTube
John's musical journey 