Our resident reviewer experiences Claus Guth’s production of the Richard Strauss opera:
The new Met Salome and Salomettes
by Alastair Macaulay
Since the great virtues of the new Metropolitan Opera production of Richard Strauss’s Salome” are vocal and musical , it’s too bad people come out talking mainly about non-musical matters: its sets and its six non-singing Salomettes. The Met’s marvellously energising music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts. The remarkable Dutch soprano Elza van der Heever plays the title role; the marvellous Swedish baritone Peter Mattei is Jokanaan. The production, directed by Claus Guth with sets by Etienne Pluss and costumes by Ursula Kudrna, is by no means terrible, but it seems determined to distract attention from van der Heever and Mattei and (as Herod) Gerhard Siegel. Why is Herodias (Michelle DeYoung) the only character not wearing black and/or white?
The Met has become internationally known as the epitome of traditional methods in opera production. Back in 2009, Luc Bondy’s new production of “Tosca”, unlikely to have ruffled many feathers in Europe, prompted first-night boos here in New York. But this 2025 “Salome” is an example of European “Regie” (staging a scenario that differs from the opera’s libretto) that goes far further than the Bondy “Tosca”, without outraging New Yorkers. I just wish it were better.
As Salome descends the staircase of Pluss’s stage decor, his entire, palatial, main chamber rises upwards, high. And what rises into view from the depths is the strikingly spacious white cistern where Jokanaan (John the Baptist) is kept. This is not the first Met Opera operatic production where, behind an already tall proscenium arch, spectacularly tall sets have risen and/or fallen, but even by comparison it’s still breathtaking.
Then there are the Salomettes, whom the programme calls “Child Salome” and who are dressed identically to Salome herself. Guth’s production implies that Salome is a victim of child abuse by Herod; and that she has undergone multiple personality disorder. So we see one Salomette keeping Herod at a distance; another, however, has learnt to lure him, even to spread her legs for him: Another Salomette, early in the opera, behaves the same way for Narraboth, captain of the guard: she lies down and spreads her legs in invitation, as she persuades him to release Jokanaan from his cistern.
Salome is violently conflicted about both Jokanaan and Herod. The opera’s love-death climax comes when, having demanded from Herod the decapitation of Jokanaan, she then kisses Jokanaan’s dead head with undisguised eroticism in full view of the living Herod.
But there are two extensive buildups to this climax, each laden with internal climaxes. The first is the long and multifaceted dance with which Salome seduces Herod, against his will, into the execution of Jokanaan. The second, following almost immediately, is the long vocal outpouring with which Salome greets Jokanaan’s severed head. You want Elza van den Heever – six feet tall, a confident and authoritative stage actress – make a knockout effect in both these episodes, but Guth’s production won’t let her. An old tradition of bygone decades used to save the soprano the ordeal of having to dance by replacing her with a substitute Salome who did the dance on her behalf. (Bad idea in my experience.) Guth’s elaborate production doesn’t do that, but then he doesn’t give us any real dancing. Instead the dance music becomes just a series of physical vignettes: some of them show us Salome’s splintered egos and Herod; but others of them waste time by showing us (why?) one or other adolescent Salomette practising basic ballet balances on flat foot. (Sommer Ulrickson is credited with what little “choreography” there is.) In the massive vocal monologues of the final scene, Guth gives her more stage business: she does everything he asks, but he seems not to want her to open her soul to us.
Why aren’t Van den Heever and Mattei well known in London? New Yorkers know them as impressive and astonishingly versatile artists who have both performed a number of new productions and revivals for the Metropolitan Opera. Salome is Van den Heever’s eleventh role here; the others include star roles by Handel, Mozart, Donizetti, Wagner, Richard Strauss, and Berg. She blazes her way through Salome fearlessly, navigating her way from top to bottom of the role’s tessitura without hesitation. This Salome is still a girl, a bold study of innocence gone wrong, her voice still shiningly pure, even angelic.
Mattei’s versatility is yet more astounding than hers. For many Met Opera devotees, he’s been the definitive Amfortas (“Parsifal”) of our lifetimes, and yet he’s also had the panache for Rossini’s Figaro (“Barbiere di Siviglia”). As Mozart’s Count (“Nozze di Figaro”) and Don Giovanni, he exemplifies cantilena line; he’s a superb Tchaikovsky Eugene Onegin and Yeletsky (“Queen of Spades”). As Jokanaan, his whole sound and diction have fervour, nobility, vision.
Common sense tells us that Herod is a world-class creep, but Gerhard Siegel makes him three-dimensional. In one unfortunate stroke, however, Guth’s production makes Siegel-Herod die at the end. Surely that’s a mistake. Herod has created the climate whereby Salome has become one kind of monster; but his final utterance, ordering her execution, tells us how he can’t bear to live with what he has created. We don’t need Guth’s redeeming plot twist that has Herod die – we do need to see him witness the horror of his creation. As Herodias, his wife and Salome’s mother, Michelle de Young inhabits this opera’s heart of darkness with nicely varied dashes of attack, glee, and alarm.
Yannick Nézet-Séguin became the Met’s music director in 2018. Since then, he’s proved both exemplary and seemingly tireless. Conducting “Salome”, he reveals all the fascinating complexity of Richard Strauss’s score, so that you feel its subtlety and its force in the same moment. He shows the hush within the babel, the danger within the glamour, the beauty within the venom.
Alastair Macaulay
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