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Salome
By Michael Van Duzer
Richard Strauss’ Salome is an opera of wild contradictions and seemingly irreconcilable problems-- the kinds of problems that only an incisive work of genius can overcome. First, there’s the source: Oscar Wilde’s overripe melodrama was intended for Sarah Bernhardt who declined to play it. It had never even been performed publicly in his native England where he was a convicted felon. Then there’s the plot: a blood-soaked nightmare spiced with suicide, incest, rampant lust, and cruelty to Biblical characters was initially deemed a bit unsavory for many opera-goers. Finally, there’s the problem of casting: finding a Salome who is visually believable as well as aurally satisfying has defeated many a production. Strauss wrote the role for a sixteen year old, sexually precocious virgin with the vocal heft of a Brunhilde, who could dance the “Dance of the Seven Veils” and still have to power to rhapsodize over the head of John the Baptist for fifteen minutes. Despite these problems (or, perhaps, because of them) the opera has been titillating audiences since its premiere.
For many years, opera companies solved the problem of the “Dance of the Seven Veils” by substituting a dancer for the diva during the ballet. The practice has fallen off during the past quarter century, so I had never had occasion to see it done until Tuesday night’s performance at Opera Pacific. The reason was not that the diva (Turid Karlsen) was unable or unwilling to dance but that she had been felled with a case of bronchitis that demanded complete bed rest and had been unable to learn the choreography. We are fortunate that Ms Karlsen didn’t choose to overextend herself in learning the dance since it might have compromised a stunning vocal performance of the title role. Karlsen’s American debut was an unmitigated triumph. She purred sweetly, blossomed into sensual petulance and found the strength to conquer Strauss’ orchestral avalanche with seeming ease. The rest of the cast proved just as strong. In a break from the tradition of an effete royal family, Allan Glassman was a refreshingly powerful and virile Herod while Milena Kitic thundered through Herodias’ music with nary a hint of a whine. As Narraboth, Patrick Marques hurled us into the world of the opera with the sound of his passionately beautiful, unrequited longings, while Christopher Robertson’s Jochanaan (Wilde’s name for John the Baptist) was sonorous and otherworldly as the one man able to resist Salome. In the pit, John DeMain corralled the mighty forces of the orchestra for a crisp and colorful reading of the score.
Director Ian Judge chose to set the opera in a period that reflected the work’s creation rather than the Biblical source. Presumably this was to avoid the worst excesses of the stereotypical “hootchy-koo” costuming, but it also presented a world that ran a few degrees cooler than the typical Salome production. Choreographer Sergio Trujillo did crank up the heat for the all-important dance, and Erin Basta, as the dancing Salome, perfectly executed the pastiche choreography, nimbly avoiding any hints of camp. Tim Goodchild’s sets (he also did the costumes) were in tune with the detached feel of the concept, and his colossal windows, grand staircase and golden palms seemingly imported from the Luxor Hotel, were a wittily grandiose battleground for competing lusts of the cast of characters.
February 25-March 2, 2003 Orange County Performing Arts Center 1 800 34OPERA
www.operapacific.org
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