La Forza del Destino

Richard Strauss

Salome

Upcoming Performances

Tuesday

Apr 29 at 8 PM

Friday

May 2 at 8 PM

Tuesday

May 6 at 8 PM

Saturday

May 10 at 1 PM

Tuesday

May 13 at 7:30 PM

Saturday

May 17 at 1 PM

Wednesday

May 21 at 8 PM

Saturday

May 24 at 8 PM

Overview

Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts his first Met performances of Strauss’s white-hot one-act tragedy, which receives its first new production at the company in 20 years. Claus Guth, one of Europe’s leading opera directors, gives the biblical story—already filtered through the beautiful and strange imagination of Oscar Wilde’s play—a psychologically perceptive Victorian-era setting rich in symbolism and subtle shades of darkness and light. Headlining the new staging is soprano Elza van den Heever as the abused and unhinged antiheroine, who demands the head of Jochanaan, sung by celebrated baritone Peter Mattei. Tenor Gerhard Siegel is Salome’s lecherous stepfather, King Herod, with mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung as his wife, Herodias, and tenor Piotr Buszewski as Narraboth. Derrick Inouye conducts two performances in May.

Please note that video cameras will be in operation during the May 13 and May 17 performances as part of the Met’s Live in HD series of cinema transmissions.

Production a gift of the Berry Charitable Foundation and Daisy M. Soros

Major support from The Sybil B. Harrington Endowment Fund

Additional support from Mr. and Mrs. Michael Corey

Languages

Languages sung in Salome

Sung In

German

Titles

Title languages displayed for Salome

Met Titles In

  • English
  • German
  • Spanish

Timeline

Timeline for the show, Salome

Estimated Run Time

1 hrs 50 mins

  • House Opens

  • Salome

    110 mins

  • Opera Ends

Salome

Premiere: Dresden Court Opera, 1905. The story of this incendiary and powerful opera is derived from a brief biblical account: A young princess of Judea dances for her stepfather Herod and chooses as her reward the head of the prophet John the Baptist. This subject captured the imaginations of generations of visual artists, but its full possibilities were perhaps best realized in Oscar Wilde’s 1891 tragedy (which was banned from performance in several countries). Strauss’s score combines the grandeur of Wagner’s epics with the focus and emotional punch of the short Italian verismo operas.

Creators

Richard Strauss (1864–1949) composed an impressive body of orchestral works and songs before turning to the stage. After two early failures, Salome caused a sensation and launched the second part of his long and productive career. Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), the Irish novelist, poet, and playwright, was one of the defining characters of the Victorian era. Strauss used a German translation of Wilde’s play by author and poet Hedwig Lachmann (1865–1918).

Claus Guth

Production

Claus Guth

Etienne Pluss

Set Designer

Etienne Pluss

Ursula Kudrna

Costume Designer

Ursula Kudrna

Olaf Freese

Lighting Designer

Olaf Freese

rocafilm / Roland Horvath

Projection Designer

rocafilm / Roland Horvath

Sommer Ulrickson

Choreographer

Sommer Ulrickson

Yvonne Gebauer

Dramaturg

Yvonne Gebauer

Headshot of Richard Strauss

Composer

Richard Strauss

Setting

Salome

The action takes place outside the palace of King Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee, in the early first century C.E. This season’s new production updated the action to the Victorian era.

Music

From the opening measure, Strauss’s score announces itself as exotic, iconoclastic, and thoroughly compelling. Much of the work’s magic comes from the orchestra pit: The famous Dance of the Seven Veils occurs about two-thirds of the way through the opera, and while most of the orchestra’s other notable passages are more integrated into the surrounding score than the dance, they are no less memorable. For all the wonder in the orchestra, the opera is uniquely demanding on the singers, particularly the title role. Her lines stretch from the highest to the lowest ranges of the female voice, working with and sometimes against the huge orchestra. In its musical and dramatic challenges, it stands as one of the most challenging—and exhilarating—roles in opera.

Salome