Moon. Cistern. Millstone. In Opernhaus Zürich’s revival of its 2021 production of Salome, the curtain rises on these objects, behemoths towering over the stage and its tortured protagonists: two gigantic cut-out crescent moons, which will spin and dip around the stage as the story progresses; a drawbridge which serves as the symbolic cistern cover; and a kind of millstone, which grinds around the outer wall like the inexorable motor of tragedy.
Directed by Andreas Homoki, this striking, simple production of Richard Strauss’ 1905 tragedy premiered in September 2021, just as stages were reopening. Conducted in this revival by Erik Nielsen, its effectiveness lies in its directness, a few strong artistic choices providing the framework in which the musicians can do their work: Hartmut Meyer’s moving stage design, which the singers must fight against, or cower within; Franck Evin’s dramatic lighting, which both blinds and casts into shadow.
A few other unusual elements give the audience something to chew over. The five Jews have expanded into a gaggle of fifteen – something Strauss suggests as a possibility in a footnote in the score – and the potential of this, both comedic and violent, works tremendously well. In the scene where Herod is panicking about the Messiah, they rend their shirts in intellectual ecstasy, and the opera closes with them throwing themselves at the Tetrarch and his wife, revenge for the murder of the prophet shining in their eyes.
And it must be said that he is a memorable prophet. From his first echoing offstage line, Kostas Smoriginas’ splendid sonorous bass-baritone voice fills the stage. He gives us an ambiguous Jochanaan, seedy, troubled, giving in to Salome’s charms before pushing her away; alternately exploiting the stentorian power of his range and slipping into hissing and growling (his final “Niemals!” – never! – the moment of rejection that seals his fate, was chilling).
The love-hate chemistry between Smoriginas and Elena Stikhina as Salome was ugly and interesting, more smoke than fire. Stikhina plays the princess as an innocent discovering her powers, her sweet, rounded soprano expanding into something powerful and vicious as she struggles within the story’s noose. In the final scene, singing her heart out, she appears both stricken and proud, impressively unexhausted, on the cusp of revelation. And in this telling, all is not over, as she is allowed to vanish offstage before the soldiers rush her mother and uncle…
John Daszak as Herodes and Dalia Schaechter as Herodias bring a contrast in tone and energy to the stage, another kind of love-hate dynamic that festers rather than flourishes. Swaggering around in silk pyjamas, Daszak brings both pathos and pure loathesomeness to the character of the Tetrarch. (It’s quite hard to watch him collecting Salome’s panties at the end of the Dance of the Seven Veils.) He has a ringing, over-the-top energy to his tenor voice that works really well for the role, and complemented Schaechter’s crisp delivery well.
Overall, in fact, the singers took great care with the text, giving its strangeness a chance to shine. Oscar Wilde’s tragedy – and Hedwig Lachmann’s German translation, which forms the basis for the libretto – is a dreamy thing, soaked in metaphor; a turn-of-the-century Song of Songs: when Salome first appears, “She is like the shadow of a white rose in a mirror of silver.” In one of Jochanaan’s visions, “the stars of the heaven shall fall upon the earth like unripe figs that fall from the fig-tree.” Only Herodias sees through this shimmering atmosphere of mystery, declaring crisply that “the moon looks like the moon, just as usual.” But common sense won’t save her from the tragic logic in which she is trapped. She’ll be kneeling on the moon’s face when the soldiers come for her, as the stage spins on into the unknown.
