Richard STRAUSS (1864-1949)
Salome, Op. 54 (1905)
Asmik Grigorian (Salome), John Daszak (Herod), Anna Maria Chiuri (Herodias), Gábor Bretz (Jokanaan), Julian Prégardien (Narraboth), Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra/Franz Welser-Möst
Romeo Castellucci (stage director, set, costume and lighting designer), Henning Kasten (video director)
rec. 24, 26 & 28 August 2018, Felsenreitschule, Salzburg, Austria
Sung in German with subtitles in German, English, French, Spanish, Italian, Korean, Japanese
UNITEL EDITIONS DVD 801608 [111 mins]
Consider, if you will, this scene from Romeo and Juliet.
Mercutio, Romeo’s friend, has fought a duel with Tybalt, and is
dying. Romeo believes that the wound is not serious. A scratch, replies
Mercutio: ‘… not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door;
but ‘tis enough, ‘twill serve.’ Now let us imagine
that the producer, wishing to stage the play in a way that asks questions
of the audience rather than answering them, decides to dispense with
the duel altogether. In this case, Mercutio doesn’t die, leaving
no reason for Romeo to avenge his death by, in turn, killing Tybalt.
How can the producer square his vision with Shakespeare’s text?
In Richard Strauss’s Salome, a near word-for-word setting
of the German translation of a play by Oscar Wilde, itself loosely based
on a New Testament story, the young princess Salome develops a lustful
desire for John the Baptist. She extracts a promise from her father,
Herod, that if she dances for him, he will give her anything she asks
for. She demands the Baptist’s head. In the closing scene of the
opera, Salome ecstatically speaks to and kisses the severed head of
John the Baptist. Among the many perplexing features of this staging
by Romeo Castellucci is the fact that there is no dance and no head.
Truly, Castellucci seems to want to ask questions of his audience without
answering them.
By chance, this DVD was waiting for me when I returned home after a
few days in Aix-en Provence, where I saw Puccini’s Tosca
in a production by Christophe Honoré. His vision of the work required
not one, but two Toscas, the first in retirement, played by the 70-year-old
Catherine Malfitano; and the second, at the outset of her career, a
pupil of the retired diva, marvellously sung and played by Angel Blue.
The first act is presented as a rehearsal at the diva’s home.
The staging of the second act is complex and I fear I never understood
it, nor the reasoning behind it. The third act has the orchestra and
conductor on stage and the cast in concert dress. It is the older, non-singing
Tosca, depressed and in crisis because her career is over, who commits
suicide at the end, slashing her wrists. Her death is confirmed by a
character dressed in a French fireman’s uniform, as if summoned
from the theatre corridors.
We know that opera houses throughout the world function on repeated
performances of a handful – albeit a mighty handful – of
works. I imagine that when the call comes to stage Tosca or
Salome any producer is going to look for new ways of doing
things, and that is as it should be. But opera is theatre, and generally
tells a story, even if we can’t always hear the words. Good costume
design allows the audience to identify the characters. In Aix, had you
not already known the story, you would have had no idea at all what
was going on. I’d hate to be seen as reactionary, but this can’t
be right.
In my opinion, the Aix production of Tosca amounted to a near-sabotage
of Puccini’s masterpiece. This Salome, on the other hand,
in spite of a large number of perverse and apparently counter-productive
aspects of the staging, is powerful and compelling. Let’s see
why.
The set is grey, neutral and inert. Salome’s crown, attached to
a veil, lies on the ground. Narraboth, the Captain of the detail guarding
the prisoner, John the Baptist, enters with Herodias’s Page. Both
are in modern western dress: long coats, collar and tie, homburg hats,
strange in the case of the page, a mezzo-soprano frequently played as
being in love with Narraboth. The bottom half of each of their faces
is painted red. They walk, with stylised gestures, to the middle of
the stage, where Narraboth wraps Salome’s veil around his shoe
before singing the first line of the opera, in praise of the young princess’s
beauty. Soldiers appear, similarly dressed and painted, and carrying
riding paraphernalia which they install against the back wall. Then
enter some cleaners, also with half-painted faces, but dressed as cleaners,
at least. They set about mopping the floor, before hauling something
long, black and disgusting from the cistern in which the Baptist is
held. Salome, when she appears, is dressed in pure, virginal white,
except that the back of her shift is stained with what one imagines
to be menstrual blood and of which she seems to be unaware. She hears
the voice of the prophet and demands to see him, though Narraboth informs
her that Herod has forbidden it. She then uses her feminine charms on
Narraboth, but her movements, coquettish certainly, are again stylised
and strangely gauche, perhaps to show that this teenager lacks, as yet,
experience in this kind of thing. Narraboth relents, and as she waits
for John the Baptist to rise from his cell, she dons her veil and crown
like any young girl at her first communion. The Baptist is jet-black,
his head festooned with American-Indian feathers. When Salome finally
gets to approach him and to tell him how beautiful he is and how much
she desires him he has acquired her veil and crown – we don’t
see quite how – and is holding them in his hand. He has only revulsion
for her, but his movements suggest that even he is tempted. Narraboth,
who is in love with Salome, kills himself in despair at this spectacle,
though the filming doesn’t allow us to see this. By now, Salome
is down on all fours with a saddle on her back, an unmistakeable sexual
invitation as clumsy as before. There is nothing clumsy about what she
does when the Baptist returns to his cistern however. There may be no
Dance of the Seven Veils in this production, but the choreography here
is as erotic as anything I have ever seen on the operatic stage. This
vision is complemented by the appearance of a black stallion at the
mouth of the cistern.
The scene changes to Herod’s banquet, represented by a few standard
lamps, a band and a camera on a tripod. Herodias’s face is painted
green rather than red. Also present is a mini-Salome, perhaps ten years
old: stop looking at her, you’re always looking at her, spits
Herodias. This child-Salome slips out by the door when the older version
reappears. Then follow a series of quite extraordinary stage images.
As the Jews try to convince Herod to deliver the Baptist to them, two
boxers and their referee are photographed towards the back of the stage.
The hosing down of the Baptist at least explains that he who is meant
to be white as ivory was only black because he was covered in filth.
But are they not two American policemen doing the hosing? When John
returns to the cistern Herodias throws her outrageous headgear and jewellery
down after him. On to Salome’s dance which is, as we have seen,
no dance at all. Instead she is mounted on a plinth, bound and kneeling,
semi-naked, in the foetal position whilst what appears to be a giant
rock is slowly lowered and seems to crush her. Reappearing behind a
shield of helpers, like the lady who has not been sawn in half, she
now demands the Baptist’s head as her prize. She needs time and
determination to break Herod’s resolve, much of which she spends
in a pool of milk. Human bodies are dragged on in semi-transparent bags.
The stallion’s head is produced, perhaps as a sop: you’re
not having the prophet but you can have this. And when Herod finally
gives in, it is not the Baptist’s head that is given, but the
rest of him, naked. Everything but the head.
My colleague Roy Westbrook has praised the musical aspects of this performance,
allowing me to concentrate on the staging. I agree with everything he
says, though I don’t share his slight reservations about the John
Daszak’s Herod. Musically, this is as good as it gets, and now
stands alongside my favourite audio-only recording, on RCA, superbly
conducted by Erich Leinsdorf and with Montserrat Caballé, of all people,
an astonishing Salome. This is live, and the Salzburg cast are very
fine actors, seemingly convinced by and committed to Castellucci’s
vision of the work. I also pay tribute to the sumptuous playing of the
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the perfect pacing of the work by
conductor Franz Welser-Möst, who was subject to much adverse criticism
during his tenure in London. And then there is Asmik Grigorian. Hers
is surely a Salome that will not be forgotten. Describing in detail
her assumption of the role would take several pages. Let me simply draw
attention to her as a petulant teenager, stubbornly insisting that she
wants the Baptist’s head and nothing else will do. In the final
scene, Salome seems to accept that having finally kissed John the Baptist
she is now, in some way, complete. She is both blissfully happy and
deeply moved, and knows that she will now die. Grigorian communicates
all this through facial expressions whilst singing in a pit with only
her head and shoulders visible to the audience. And what singing! Vocally
she is beyond praise.
Romeo Castellucci presents his view of Salome by avoiding the
explicit, preferring signs that each of us may interpret as we wish
and as far as we are able. Does the presence of Salome as a child and
the older Salome’s bloodstained costume suggest sexual abuse on
the part of Herod? I’m pretty sure it does, for there are other
clues too. As for the rest, one can only wonder and ponder. Why is the
Baptist’s head not produced at the end, but the rest of him instead?
What is the significance of the horse and riding equipment? Surely it
can’t simply be a reference to the fact that the theatre in Salzburg
was originally a riding school? (If the production transfers one day
to Covent Garden, will sacks of potatoes and carrots be produced?) Whose
bodies are in those bags, and what on earth are the boxers doing there?
Why are so many of Herod’s movements and gestures shadowed by
figures standing behind him? This could all lead to frustration and
even derision, and for some operagoers it may indeed do so. To my surprise,
following some initial scepticism, I find it all extraordinarily compelling.
Unlike the Aix Tosca, these are strong and striking ideas with
huge visual and theatrical impact. And let us not forget that Strauss
himself sets us an enormous conundrum. How did he relate to his heroine?
She is plainly a depraved, disgusting monster, yet he gives her some
of the most ravishingly beautiful music that any operatic soprano will
ever sing. What would he have thought Grigorian’s assumption of
the role? We can only speculate on that, but the curtain calls at Salzburg
are revealing. The audience reserves the loudest and longest cheer for
her. So far so conventional, though it does seem sincere. But when the
production team appears on stage – also warmly received –
Castellucci kneels before her, delighted, deeply grateful, perhaps even
in awe of her magisterial and miraculous performance.
William Hedley
Previous review (Blu-ray): Roy
Westbrook
Len
Mullenger’s interpretation of the staging
Salome
- That shocking opera
