Salome in English in Brooklyn
When “modern” operas draw on subjects never used in librettos before, and their music stretches to new realms of harmony and dissonance, audiences can find themselves simultaneously enthralled and repulsed.
But “modern” opera has always been thorny. In 1905, Richard Strauss turned a scandalous play (in French) by Oscar Wilde into a dissonant one-act opera with a German libretto, and a score that not only broke away from “classical” music but planted Strauss firmly in the vanguard of 20th century composers. While the opera was soon performed in many European venues, it was banned in London until 1907; and prohibited by the censors in Vienna until 1918. It had one performance at the Met in New York, in 1907, but was never mounted there again until 1934!
Salome is biblical—literally, in its story, and figuratively in its scope. The petulant princess of Judea, bored with life in her stepfather King Herod’s court, demands to see the imprisoned prophet Jokanaan (John the Baptist). The jailor, to whom she makes vague promises of affection, opens the cell. But Jokanaan is not looking for freedom. He curses her mother Herodias as a whore, and predicts that Herod’s kingdom will fall to a messiah who is preaching to fishermen on the Sea of Galilee.
Salome has always had her way, but try as she may she cannot seduce Jokanaan. She praises his skin, his hair and deep, all-seeing eyes. But she longs to kiss his mouth—and to that he stubbornly refuses to yield.
Just then, Herod arrives. He has long feared that something or someone would dethrone him and has imprisoned Jokanaan for prophesying that. Yet he also fears divine retribution if he should kill a holy man. But he is motivated chiefly by an unhealthy obsession with Salome. He entreats her to drink and eat with him, and sit beside him, and then demands that she dance for him. After denying him all that, she agrees to dance if he will grant her anything she wishes for in return. Foolishly he swears to do so, and she performs what’s come to be known as the “dance of the seven veils.”
Herod is pleased. He offers her jewels, and power over as much as half his kingdom, but she turns it all down. All she wants is Jokanaan’s head on a silver platter, so she can kiss his mouth. When she does so, Herod is appalled and orders his guards to kill her.
An innovative production of Salome in modern dress, directed by Elizabeth Dinkova, was mounted this winter by the Heartbeat Opera Company, with an English libretto by Tom Hammond, and the score arranged by Dan Schlosberg for a small orchestra of percussion and the clarinet family of reeds, directed by Jacob Ashworth.
The Brooklyn performance space in the Irondale Center for Theater, Education and Outreach had the audience on either side of a wide, open area whose set was designed by Emona Stoykova and lit by Emma Deane. On one end of the “stage,” the orchestra played; on the other end was a riser with the jailor’s office (and surveillance video screens). Between them stood a transparent plexiglass box for Jokanaan’s cell.
The title role is famously demanding; and although soprano Summer Hassan arrives costumed (by Mika Eubanks) like a youngster in a frilly tutu, her voice is fully and powerfully mature. Likewise, baritone Nathaniel Sullivan makes Jokanaan’s full-throated prophecies ring out. Patrick Cook’s Herod, Manna K Jones’s Herodias, and Melina Jaharis’s Page all brilliantly convey the anguish their characters are going though. Shoutout to David Morgens as Nahaboth (the morally conflicted jailor) and Jeremy Harr as the soldier forced to guard the prophet he both wants and doesn’t want to believe in.
The Page (Melina Jaharis) and the Soldier (Jeremy Harr) try to comfort their frightened King Herod (Patrick Cook). (Photo by Andrew Boyle)
Books have been written about Strauss’s music for Salome, and much has been said and debated about the enormous, jarring chord at the finale. I don’t know if anyone has ever done what Schlosberg did—paring the orchestral score down to 28 parts, played by eight clarinetists and two percussionists. But it proved to be powerful, and kept the level of musical tension high throughout.
Also unexpected here was the choreography (by Emma Jaster) of the “seven veils” dance. What audiences saw 120 years ago was a de facto striptease; and in many subsequent productions, a diffident soprano yields the floor to a professional dancer. Here, though, after shedding that hideous pink tutu, Hassan merely shimmies for a couple of seconds and counts to seven on her fingers as the enthralled Herod—seduced, really—disrobes down to his briefs!
This run of Salome has ended, but the Met is mounting its own production this season. And Heartbeat Opera will follow up in May with a fresh production of Gounod’s Faust.
Opening photo: Salome (Summer Hassan) disdains Jokanaan (Nathaniel Sullivan) for not falling under her spell. Photo by Andrew Boyle.
