Richard Strauss

Salome

Duration: 1 h 45 min, No interval
When: 11.10.2024 – 31.10.2024
Where: Main Stage
Genre: Opera
Price range: 21–126 €
Language: German. Surtitles in Finnish, Swedish and English
Age recommendation: 16+
Good to know: The performance contains some scenes with sexual violence

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The divine role of power

Based on a play by Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Salome is one of the most intense and powerful operas ever created. Sensational in its time, Salome was received with both wonder and shock, thanks to its theme combining religion and eroticism and its groundbreaking musical language.

After Salome’s world premiere in 1905, Richard Strauss became an opera composer whose name was on everyone’s lips. In his electrifying revision, the masterful director Christof Loy now presents the classic work from a fresh perspective. This one-act opera captivates its audience with its unexpected elements and profound insights.

Salome returns to the Finnish National Opera’s repertoire in the autumn of 2024.

”This high standard, international and stylish production of Salome delightfully defies staid expectations.”
– Helsingin Sanomat

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synopsis

Herod is keeping the prophet Jochanaan imprisoned. When Herodias’s daughter Salome hears Jochanaan preach about the Son of Man, her curiosity is piqued and she is overcome by a strange emotion. Not long after, she wants Jochanaan brought to her.

Exploiting Narraboth’s infatuation, Salome gets to meet Jochanaan. She is immediately charmed and her curiosity soon turns into lust. Salome eventually wants to kiss Jochanaan, but the prophet rejects her advances.

Herod pleads Salome to dance. In return he promises her anything she wants. Salome agrees to perform the Dance of the Seven Veils and, once finished, reveals the reward of her choice: Jochanaan’s head on a silver platter. Herod is horrified by her request, but in the end Salome gets what she was promised.

Full synopsis and other background information can be found in the programme leaflet.

Director Christof Loy’s thoughts on Salome

”Richard Strauss’s life and work reflect a special understanding and affinity for complex female characters. The opera is typical of its time in the way it explores sexual traumas. Now, more than a hundred years later, it’s time to seek new angles to the story.

My aim was to set Salome free from the Lolita-like clichee of the girlish femme fatale of the fin de siècle, and to rather see in her a ‘dove that has strayed’, as Narraboth describes her. She takes us on a journey that questions gender and sexuality, initially dressed as a young man, maybe to protect herself, maybe in jest. Oscar Wilde meets Virginia Woolf.”