United Kingdom Richard Strauss, Salome (concert performance): Soloists, London Symphony Orchestra / Sir Antonio Pappano (conductor). Barbican Hall, London, 13.7.2025. (JPr)
It is over thirty years since I first saw Richard Strauss’s Salome at Covent Garden in 1982 – with (now Dame) Josephine Barstow as Salome, Bernd Weikl as Jochanaan and (now Sir) John Tomlinson in the small role of as First Nazarene – I have had a love-hate relationship with the opera ever since; though perhaps ‘hate’ is too harsh, it is more of a love-so what? However, I joined in the standing ovation in the Barbican Hall at the end of a blistering 100 minutes or so. I wasn’t even a reluctant standee, though I would have been the only one around me who wasn’t on their feet had I been! I was praising the performance more than the opera itself, I believe. What is clear both from this Salome and La rondine (review here) earlier in the season is how much – I suspect – Sir Antonio Pappano misses all the opera he used to conduct, despite now concluding a remarkable first season as the chief conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. On the plus side, at Covent Garden he would never have got together the cast this concert performance had, nor did he ever get to conduct it there anyway.
Strauss’s one-act opera is based on the Biblical story of Salome, step-daughter of the tetrarch Herod Antipas, who to his dismay, though to the delight of her mother Herodias, requests the head of the prophet Jochanaan (John the Baptist) on a silver platter as reward for dancing the ‘Dance of the Seven Veils’, and to take revenge on Jochanaan who spurns her advances. Salome is the by-product of the moral ills of a hedonistic society and her stepfather and mother are responsible for her unhinged persona. Salome is the victim of Herod’s paedophile tendencies and her own insatiable passions and the young girl’s rejection by Jochanaan triggers a descent to madness and ultimately death. Eventually Salome’s depravity is too much even for Herod who orders her to be killed by the soldiers at the end of the opera.
Mahler, attempting to no avail to get Salome staged in Vienna in 1905, called Salome an ‘incomparable and thoroughly original masterpiece’. Otherwise eulogising it in a letter to the composer as ‘your apogee so far! Indeed, I assert that nothing that even you have done up to now can be compared to it … Every note is right! What I have long known is that you are a natural dramatist.’ I think back on my own reaction to Salome over the years and still believe the most dubious element of it is not its overt eroticism or necrophilia but the music’s inability to convince me there is anything in the story Strauss disapproves of. Then there is the caricature of five bickering Jews having a theological argument about the fate of the prisoner which verges on anti-Semitism. Also, I am not even convinced how strongly Strauss feels about Jochanaan who he has droning on with his incessant sermonising from the cistern he is confined to for half of the opera. Never is there any blame evident in the music, so much so that when Herod orders the death of his stepdaughter for kissing the lips of the prophet’s decapitated head, the chords describe the execution, but do not condemn it.
These are some of the philosophical issues which often need to be addressed with Strauss who has got off lightly over the years compared to Wagner. Regardless on this occasion none of this seemed to matter because of some outstanding singing and an orchestra on top form for a conductor with an innate sense of theatre (in the concert hall).
The way this performance unfolded – and as great as Asmik Grigorian (Salome) and Michael Volle (Jochanaan) were – the opera could have been renamed Herod, so potently did Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke sing and act his part. Even though he sat on the far side at the front of the platform, I found it impossible not to focus my attention on him when he was singing or – unusually for a concert version – react to what others were singing. There was no real connection between Salome and Jochanaan, but Ablinger-Sperrhacke’s Herod and the equally engrossing Violeta Urmana, as an imperious, scheming Herodias, were genuinely telling a story. Urmana had a grandeur that was chilling, and she sang with Ortrud-like malevolence. Elsewhere there were a variety of performances either behind music stands with scores or sometimes without. Some singers were basking in the few phrases in the spotlight Strauss allotted them, whether it was Niamh O’Sullivan singing movingly as Herodias’s’ page or as assorted Jews, Nazarenes or soldiers. Admirably all the singers chosen seemed able to ride the tumult of the 100plus musicians behind them.
I remember spending time with Michael Volle in 2008 before he went on the stage as Jochanaan (here) and it was wonderful to see and hear him live in such resplendent vocal health. He began singing with added echo out of sight in his ‘cistern’ behind the orchestra and whether from there or at the front Volle was a very dignified Jochanaan with his portentous utterances rather more pious than fanatically zealous. Nevertheless, he brought suitably intense disgust to his repeated ‘daughter of Sodom’ and ‘daughter of Babylon’.
I was pleased to hear Asmik Grigorian sing live for the first time. I have watched her many times in broadcasts (including a Hamburg Salome here) and all my previous superlatives about her voice are justified. However, she looked at the score in front of her much too often rather than looking out to the audience or interacting with Jochanaan. So, while Grigorian sang with a full, intense, lustrous, wide-ranging soprano of searing power and so had the ‘voice of Isolde’ the role demands; she was never the opera’s seductive 16-year-old princess and appeared rather ice-cold, rather like Turandot (which she also sings). Yes, Grigorian could shift in an instant from restless sensuality to psychotic vehemence but she never – for me – looked as if she was completely inhabiting the fiendish role. Grigorian still deserved her big ovation from the audience for her remarkable singing alone.
As heard from an orchestra not confined to a pit in an opera house, Strauss’s score was revealed as more voluptuous than ever and brim full of modern harmony, soaring symphonic sound and plenty of high camp. During the opening scene as Narraboth – the young captain of the guard who is infatuated with Salome – incessantly praises her beauty, Pappano reined in the volume to keep the textures lucid and establish a mysterious mood full of foreboding. (Narraboth was sung by a heroic-sounding John Findon who clearly has a great Wagner future ahead of him should he want it.) As the disturbing events unfolded, Pappano drove his musicians on to envelope us all (the audience) in swathes of sound and pin us back in our seats with piercing climaxes. Even in moments of visceral ferocity, the playing of the London Symphony Orchestra had an exceptional transparency and for the ‘Dance of the Seven Veils’ (with Gregorian just sitting listening) Pappano brought to the music a restless erotic frisson which ended as close to a musical orgasm as you are likely to experience.
What an evening! But why, oh why, was it not filmed or otherwise recorded? Sadly only those who were there for its two performances can understand how good it was.
Jim Pritchard
Featured Image: [l-r] Michael Volle (Jochanaan), Asmik Grigorian (Salome), Sir Antonio Pappano conducting the LSO and John Findon (Narraboth) © Andy Paradise
Cast:|
Asmik Grigorian – Salome
Michael Volle – Jochanaan
Violeta Urmana – Herodias
Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke – Herod
Niamh O’Sullivan – The Page of Herodias
John Findon – Narraboth
Liam James Karai – First Nazarene
Alex Otterburn – Second Nazarene
James Kryshak – First Jew
Michael J Scott – Second Jew
Aled Hall – Third Jew
Oliver Johnston – Fourth Jew
Jeremy White – Fifth Jew
Barnaby Rea – First Soldier
William Thomas – Second Soldier
Hannah McKay – A Slave
Redmond Sanders – Cappadocian