Richard Strauss (1864-1989)
Salome, Music drama in one act after Oscar Wilde’s tragedy Op. 54 (1905)
Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Judea – Gerhard Siegel (tenor)
Herodias, Herod’s wife – Katarina Dalayman (soprano)
Salome, Herodias’s daughter – Malin Bystrøm (soprano)
Jochanaan (John the Baptist) – Johan Reuter (bass-baritone)
Narraboth, a young Syrian, Captain of the Guard – Bror Magnus Tødenes (tenor)
Remaining cast listed below
Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra/Edward Gardner
rec. live, 14 August 2022, Usher Hall, Edinburgh, UK
German text and English version included
Chandos CHSA5356(2) SACD [2 discs: 99]

The original account of Salome and the death of John the Baptist, called Jochanaan by Wilde and Strauss, is in Mark’s gospel. She is there unnamed; her name is supplied by the historian Josephus. Salome was a favourite subject for the French decadent movement of the late nineteenth century, for example in a story by Flaubert, poems by Laforgue and Mallarmé and paintings by Gustave Moreau, described by Huysmans in his novel À Rebours, all of which were known to Oscar Wilde, who was an ardent Francophile.

He wrote his play in French in 1891, but productions were banned in both France and Britain because representations of Biblical characters on stage were for a long time forbidden. However, in a translation by Hedwig Lachmann, it became popular in Germany, where Strauss saw it in 1902 and immediately decided to set it to music. He did not commission a separate libretto but made considerable cuts in Lachmann’s version and made various small alterations in what he retained. The work is in one act with no interval. Although the work is often taken as a glorification of depraved sexuality, I see it more as a study in obsession, as indeed was also Strauss’s next opera, Elektra. The title character is on stage almost throughout and the role is a demanding one for a dramatic soprano: Strauss said she should be ‘a sixteen year old with the voice of Isolde.’ To this impossible demand is added that she also has to perform the Dance of Seven Veils, which is practically a striptease.

This was Strauss’s third opera and he was at the height of his powers when composing it. He uses the Wagnerian technique of Leitmotifs and writes for an orchestra the size of that for the Ring, but with more woodwind and less brass. The idiom is very chromatic, closer in fact to Parsifal than to the Ring. Strauss has also listened to Debussy and there is a good deal of impressionism in the score, with very elaborate and constantly changing orchestral colours. The work is full of memorable motifs and powerful vocal writing and unfolds in a series of increasingly intense scenes until we reach the hair-raising climax of Salome’s paean to the severed head of Jochanaan. Despite – or perhaps because of – the gruesome subject, the work became immediately popular and is much performed and recorded.

However, if you read Ralph Moore’s survey of recordings you realise that the classic versions are all now rather old: They include Birgit Nilsson with Solti in 1961, Leonie Rysanek with Böhm in 1972, Hildegard Behrens with Karajan in 1978 and Cheryl Studer with Sinopoli in 1990. So I was very pleased to receive this new version for review. It has an interesting provenance: it is a live recording of a concert performance given at the Edinburgh Festival in 2022. However, this had been preceded by rehearsals and semi-staged performances in Bergen and so all the singers thoroughly inhabited their roles and the orchestra had learned the score and played with a will.

The cast is a strong one. In the title role Marlin Byström at first surprised me, but at a second hearing her strong but silvery timbre seemed right for the role, and she can soar above the huge orchestral climaxes. She vividly presented the character’s increasing obsession with Jochanaan as well as the determination of a teenager accustomed to having her own way and to exploiting her sexuality. The part of Herod is a tricky one: he is not sympathetic and his ill-concealed lust for Salome, his prurient desire to see her dance and his hopeless wheedling to try to get her relinquish her demand for Jochanaan’s head as a reward make him almost a caricature. It is to the credit of Gerhard Siegel that he avoids this and comes over as a convincing autocrat and he really sings the part.

Johan Reuter’s rich, fruity bass-baritone seems rather forceful and unvaried in his imprecations from the cistern but he shows more flexibility in the dialogue he has, despite saying he won’t, in his big scene with Salome. Bror Magnus Tødenes is ardent and increasingly anxious in the short but important part of Narraboth. Katarina Dalayman is commendably nasty and vicious as Herodias. The Jews, Nazarenes and Soldiers are all well done – the scene with the quarrelling Jews is one of the few moments of relative relief in this work. Only Hanna Hippas sounded too feminine as the Page, but this is a tiny part.

Edward Gardner excels in large late Romantic scores such as this and secures marvellous playing from his Bergen forces. The big orchestral passages such as the interlude after Jochanaan returns to the cistern, Salome’s dance and the final scene had a sweep and fury which carried all before it, but he also well observes the filigree detail and supports the singers.

This is a SACD recording, but I was listening in ordinary two channel stereo, in which the sound was superb. The balance slightly favours the orchestra, and in some passages the singers are hard to make out, but as this happens in the opera house as well I am not complaining.

The recording is handsomely presented, in a smart box with the famous Beardsley picture on the cover. The booklet contains the libretto in German and English. Other supporting material is in English only: this includes full biographies of all those concerned and a long and interesting essay by Gavin Plumley. This fine production deserves every success.

Stephen Barber

Previous review: Ralph Moore (May 2025)

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Other cast
Herodias’s Page, Hanna Hipp (mezzo-soprano)
First Jew, Michael Müller-Kasztelan (tenor)
Second Jew, Petter Moen (tenor)
Third Jew, John Michael Wrensted Olsen (tenor)
Fourth Jew, James Kryshak (tenor)
Fifth Jew, Callum Thorpe (bass)
First Nazarene, Clive Bayley (bass)
Second Nazarene, James Stephen Ley (tenor)
First Soldier, Igor Bakan (baritone)
Second Soldier, James Platt (bass)
A Cappadocian, James Berry (baritone)
A Slave, Rita Therese Ziem (mezzo-soprano)

For a different response to this recording, see Ralph Moore’s review.