Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Elza van den Heever rivets in the title role of Claus Guth’s stylized new production of SALOME for the Met

• By drediman
• May 8, 2025
• No Comments

Richard Strauss’s opera Salome, along with the composer’s equally memorable Elektra, represent some of the most striking music dramas you’ll find on the operatic repertoire. Based on Oscar Wilde’s scandalous play about of the same name (the opera’s German libretto is by Hedwig Lachmann), the former opera tells the Biblical story of the titular princess Salome, who coerces her stepfather Herod into beheading the captive prophet Jochanaan (i.e., John the Baptist) and serving his head to her on a platter, all because the prophet rejects the young princess’s sexual advances. Suffice to say, the opera — a coiled, succinct work that explodes with tension and color — is awash in lust and depravity, but it’s also punctuated with some soaring, sublime music, as if to juxtapose grotesqueness with the sacred.

The Met’s stylized new production by in-demand European director Claus Guth, in his company debut, arrives on the heels of an intimate, in-your-face staging in Brooklyn from the folks over at Heartbeat Opera. If anything, seeing two vastly different interpretations only proves how apt for interpretation the piece is, particularly when it comes to setting and character motivations. Whereas Heartbeat’s scrappy dystopian production played like shock jock downtown theater, the Met’s big-budgeted production unspools as a moody Victorian pyscho-drama, complete with a slew of dark, unsettled imagery (aided by ample stage fog and some dynamic video projections). Guth layers in some thoughtful and disturbing subtext, portraying Salome as a sexually abused girl who acts out in volatile and unpredictable ways. One of the most fascinating aspects of the staging is the decision is to have Salome portrayed as a collective of her past selves, indicating the extent to which she’s haunted by her traumatic past. Ultimately, this version of the opera is a revenge story, particularly as it plays out from the notorious “Dance of the Seven Veils” to the work’s violent conclusion (no spoilers here). In final assessment, this Salome is one of the most wholly successful and truly thought-provoking productions the Met has mounted in recent memory.

The cast is top notch from top to bottom. Powerfully-voiced soprano Elza van den Heever scores another major success in the title role, using her gleaming instrument with expressivity and impressive control (she was also ravishing earlier in the season in the Met’s triumphant revival of another Strauss opera Die Frau one Schatten). In line with Guth’s vision for the opera, den Heever gives a simmering, introspective performance that gains in riveting momentum and intensity as the character comes increasingly into focus. As Jochanaan, beloved baritone Peter Mattei sang resplendently, his voice smooth yet burnished with conviction. As the toxic couple of Herod and Herodias, respectively, tenor Gerhard Siegel and mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung gave performances that oozed with character. Met music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s best work comes about when charged with conducting complex pieces of music, like this one. Under his baton, Strauss’s dense score bursted with vitality, but never at the expense of articulating its many details.

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SALOME
Opera
The Metropolitan Opera
1 hour, 50 minutes (without an intermission)
In repertory through May 24