Salome and Censorship

Both the play and the opera Salome have faced extensive censorship and cancellation. Strauss’s work was banned in London until 1907, its content has been modified to be more palatable, and some performers cast in the title role have even refused to perform the infamous “Dance of the Seven Veils.” Wilde himself never saw his play performed; by the time it premiered in Paris in 1896, he had been imprisoned for “gross indecency.”

Through this activity, students will gain familiarity with the opera’s plot, explore the life of Oscar Wilde and the performance history of the opera, reflect on the importance of our freedom to access ideas and information, and create their own original projects inspired by the historical censorship of both Wilde’s play and Strauss’s opera.

STEP 1. REVIEW

A basic understanding of the opera’s plot is vital to this activity. Distribute the synopsis included with this guide and invite students to read it silently or aloud in groups. You may also wish to have students act out scenes in short improvisatory skits, or you may wish to list the major plot points on the board to ensure students understand the story’s structure and themes. You can also use the illustrated synopsis (metopera.org/salome-illustrated) for those interested in visual materials.

Check for understanding:

• Focus on Salome as the titular character. Over the course of the opera, she makes what could be described as a series of bad decisions. Think about which emotions are motivating each of these choices. What does she want and why?

Before moving on:

• Ask students to think about which parts of Salome’s story seem familiar. Presumably, many of them have felt jealousy, disappointment, attraction, desire, and frustration. Which aspects of the plot do they recognize from their own lives?

STEP 2. DISCOVER

Once students have a basic understanding of the opera’s plot, it’s important to understand the performance history of this opera and how it became subject to alteration, censorship, and outright bans. You can have students explore the timeline included with this guide, as well as the Deep Dive essay “Notes on a Scandal.” Below are a few key moments to review as a group:

1893: Oscar Wilde publishes the play Salomé in French.
1895–97: Wilde is imprisoned for “gross indecency.”
1896: Salomé premieres in Paris.
1900: Wilde dies destitute in Paris.
1902: Richard Strauss sees a Berlin production of Salomé translated by Hedwig Lachmann.
1902–05: Strauss composes Salome with a libretto adapted from Lachmann’s translation.
1905: The opera Salome premieres in Dresden, Germany.
1907: Strauss’s Salome premieres at the Met and is immediately banned.

Ask students to think back to the plot summary of the opera. What are some of the events or ideas in this opera that audiences may have found objectionable or that may have made some audience members uncomfortable? Students can also consider which, if any, of these elements of the opera would still be considered objectionable to contemporary audiences. Why or why not?

STEP 3. EXPLORE

Now students can begin to think critically about controversies in contemporary culture. Before proceeding, explain to students that the United States as a nation does not officially ban books. Thus, people in the U.S. cannot be arrested or fined for reading or buying any book. Books can be challenged, however, which means that they can be banned from certain institutions—for example, schools or libraries. These “challenges” are attempts to remove a text because a particular group or individual finds its content objectionable. A “ban” refers to the actual removal of those materials from a given institution. Schools and public libraries account for 81% of all book challenges.

Ask students to explore the top ten most challenged texts of 2023 and consider why these books were challenged:

Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe (challenged for LGBTQIA+ content; claimed to be sexually explicit)

All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson (challenged for LGBTQIA+ content; claimed to be sexually explicit)

This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson (challenged for LGBTQIA+ content and sex education; claimed to be sexually explicit)

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (challenged for LGBTQIA+ content, rape, drugs, and profanity; claimed to be sexually explicit)

Flamer by Michael Curato (challenged for LGBTQIA+ content; claimed to be sexually explicit)

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (challenged for rape, incest, equity-diversity-inclusion content; claimed to be sexually explicit)

Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews (challenged for profanity; claimed to be sexually explicit)

Tricks by Ellen Hopkins (challenged for drugs, rape, LGBTQIA+ content; claimed to be sexually explicit)

Let’s Talk About It: A Teen’s Guide to Sex, Relationships, and Being a Human by Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan (challenged for LGBTQIA+ content, sex education; claimed to be sexually explicit)

Sold by Patricia McCormick (challenged for rape; claimed to be sexually explicit)

Other texts that have faced challenges include: the Captain Underpants series, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark edited by Alvin Schwartz, Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas, Looking for Alaska by John Green, and more.

Using chart paper and/or a whiteboard, have students generate responses to the following questions, working either as class or in small groups:

• Why are books challenged?
• Who is initiating these challenges? Where are they coming from?
• What content might some individuals or groups find objectionable?
• Look at the list of texts that are being challenged today. What do these texts have in common with Salome?

STEP 4. REFLECT

Once students have considered contemporary book challenges and the history of Salome, convene a discussion that considers how stories are an essentially human way of helping us make sense of our experiences. Literacy scholar Rudine Sims Bishop notes that stories have the power to serve as “windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors.”

• Stories act as “windows” when they allow us to get a glimpse of how others—other people, other places, other times—live and perceive their world.
• Stories act as “mirrors” when we can see ourselves, our own struggles and emotions, or our own identities represented.
• Stories act as “sliding glass doors” when they help us build empathy, enabling us to step outside of ourselves to feel along with a character who is not like us.

Consider the list of frequently challenged books. Think, too, about the story of Salome. How are these stories windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors? Why?

Students can work as a whole class or in pairs or small groups to consider that question and share out ideas. Explain that both affordances and constraints can accompany censorship: It might afford safety, but it might also constrain our ability to become more proximate with other people’s stories so that we can learn from them.

It’s important for students to recognize that while some groups or individuals may object to certain content in these stories, others might feel represented. These texts might also help people get a glimpse of others’ experiences and thus build empathy

Students may want to consider how to strike a balance between these ideas. Movies and video games, for example, have age ratings to signal that extreme violence might be inappropriate for young children. Similarly, parents—who account for the largest group of individuals that challenge books—might want to protect their children from certain content. Ask students to consider the following: To what extent should those parents be able to prevent others’ children from experiencing those stories?

STEP 5. CREATE

As a culmination of this lesson, students will use censorship to create beauty by turning Salome into a “blackout poem.” Blackout poetry uses censorship—that is, the literal blacking out of words from a text—to create something new, original, and visually striking.

First, students need pages with words. You can provide them with material or ask them to use library resources, online search engines, or other tools to find usable texts. Since Wilde’s play is in the public domain, it is easy to find the full text of Salome online. Students can also use reviews written about Salome (either the play or the opera, or both), excerpts from this guide, sections of Wilde’s biography, or excerpts from the play or libretto (in German, English, or French).

Each student should get a full page of text. Ask them to skim the text for words that stand out to them. They should use a piece of notebook paper to list the words in the order they appear in the text. Once students have compiled their list, they should review their list to determine a central theme or idea to represent in their blackout poems.

Using that central theme or idea, students should go back to their list of words and their page of text. They should cross out words on their list that do not fit and find other connecting words in the text that may help create a cohesive whole. Next, they should use a black marker to draw a box around each letter, word, or phrase in the text that they plan to keep in their poems.

To finish the blackout poem, they can decide whether to fill in the space around their boxed words with a drawing or design. Once that design is completed, they should blackout everything else on the page that does not belong in their poem. Feel free to show examples of blackout poetry so students have models to emulate.

STEP 6. SHARE

Once students have finished their individual poems, hang them up around the classroom and convene a gallery walk. Ask students to consider:

• Are there any poems or designs that are similar to each other? How so?
• What kinds of text did students use? Did any use the same text? Were their poems similar or different?
• What aspects of Salome and/or its history are reflected in the poems?
• Do the texts of the poems refer to themes or ideas that have led other works to be challenged or banned?
• There is a long history of visual art inspired by the story of Salome. (See the “Kiss from a Pose” Deep Dive essay for additional context.) How do the visual designs complement the poems’ text?