And so to the opera. I have been to see Opera North's concert staging of Salomé, which I found curiously unengaging for
all the technical merits of the performances. Last year I saw the original play
and didn’t enjoy that much either so I suspect that my issue is with Wilde
rather than Strauss. It’s full of the bad (Herod, Herodias), the deranged
(Narraboth, John the Baptist) and those who are both (our title character),
which all gets rather wearing after a while, even in operatic form.
The narrative arc –
spoilt rich girl insists on getting her own way but then gets her comeuppance as
well – is familiar enough. Offsetting it with the Baptist’s moral monomania and
misogyny ought to provide more drama than it does. Herod seems to be
hedging his bets between appeasing his wife’s anger and not doing anything too
extreme in case John’s revelations from God are real; modern audiences will
probably just be wondering whereabouts on the autistic scale the soi disant prophet sits.
In this production the
dance of the seven veils takes place off stage. Just as it became apparent that
was how they were going to do it a chap across the aisle got up and left. Sadly,
rather than being a dirty old man storming out because he felt short changed by
the lack of nudity, he turned out to only have gone to the toilet and shortly
returned. As Opera North – who have no aversion to their sopranos getting their kit off – shied away from it, let’s have Ken Russell’s
version. For the avoidance of doubt, this is not Strauss’s music and nor is it
suitable for viewing at work:
The name of the dance
isn’t of course mentioned in the bible and originates with Wilde’s 1891 play. I
have recently re-read Umberto Eco’s ‘Name of the Rose’, set in the
fourteenth century. William of Baskerville refers while in conversation
with Adso of Melk to ‘the dance of the seven veils’ performed by Salomé. Given
the author’s vast erudition and sense of irony one must assume that this is a deliberate
in-joke rather than a mistake.
“Books are not made
to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry. When we consider a book, we
mustn't ask ourselves what it says but what it means..." - Umberto Eco
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