From: chrisi@lloyd.Camex.COM (Chris Ischay)
Subject: Re: Salome
Organization: Camex Inc., Boston MA
Date: Fri, 06 Nov 1992 10:51:37 EST

In article <Nov06.053519.38704@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU>
hurben@lamar.ColoState.EDU (Mike Hurben) writes:

>Well, I just bought the Sinopoli recording of Salome with Cheryl Studer in
>the title role...It is beautiful!!  I have already listened to it twice (I
>am used to Wagner - this is so short!)

Playing it twice sounds like an inventive solution to lengthening short
operas.  %^)  In fact, this one is really *too* short in a way.  It makes
for an awkwardly short evening, and it doesn't exactly go with Pagliacci.

>... there is a lot here to like.  I
>had never heard this opera before this evening, and I am quite impressed.

Salome has a few rough spots, but mostly a lot of gorgeous music.  And some
very creepy music.  The double-bass squeaks during the beheading are
particularly chilling.  I find it odd that the part I like least is the
dance.  Strauss composed the whole thing start to finish skipping over the
dance, thinking he would come back later and create a smashing hit.  I
think somehow he lost the mood by doing it this way.

>I have heard that this piece really caused quite a stir at it's debut...But
>I don't see why it is all that shocking.  

Really?  Go back to the beginning of the century.  Think of women's bathing
outfits, for example.  Times were different from ours.  That said, I still
think of Salome as bizarre enough to be shocking.  Of course we've been
somewhat hardened to shock through years of grisly movies and grislier
true-life tales.

Imagine a respected soprano (read "prima donna") playing a demented and
cruel adolescent.  More than subtle hints of a sexual relationship with
Herod.  Lascivious prancing around the stage, which upon occasion has been
done *very* sexily, sometimes by a stand-in dancer, and sometimes for
better or worse by the singer.  They usually keep at least one veil, but
not always.  Then this petulant but wacko kid demands an execution when she
can't seduce John the Baptist, and finally gets her kiss by making love to
his severed head.

Opera up to that point had its share of cruelty, but I don't know of
another quite so blatant and graphic as this, with strong sexual overtones.

Now who's to say the average audience member didn't eat it up with a spoon?
We'll never know about the New York debut, because J.P. Morgan was grossed
out and insisted the show not go on.  

>I guess that the one thing I really don't get is, what is the POINT of this
>thing?  I am used to Wagner and hence, looking for some kind of
>'interpretation' for everything that I listen to...It seems to me that this
>is just a story, and I should just enjoy it as such.  Does anyone have any
>thoughts about this?

I don't know if "enjoy" is even the best word.  "Appreciate" perhaps.  You
might find it illuminating to go back and read Wilde's play, and to read
some of the commentary about the opera.

If you're used to Wagner, I can understand how it might be hard to place
the characters in context.  It seems to me that Wagner's characters are
something more and something less than human.  They are mythic.

Italian opera grew into the grand opera tradition of the mid to late 19th
century with characters that walked the earth of the real world, but they
weren't "really" real.  Storybook stuff.  Eventually real life began to
intrude in verismo drama.  I wouldn't quite know where to place Salome and
friends in this scheme.  It's as if Wilde has taken what could be a mythic
tale and turned it into a real-life scene, and a gruesome one at that.

Is there a point?  I don't think so, in the sense of purpose or moral
message.  A slightly demented fascination and consideration of cruelty?
Perhaps.  A biblical tale turned x-rated?  Wilde would.  A struggle between
good and evil?  If you will.  I find there to be enough in that too-short
work to mull over at length.  You might too.  Just don't lose your head
over it.  %^)

Chris Ischay
chrisi@camex.com
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical