Salome
*Tickets are available for this event. See booking button below.
Event location: Royal Opera House.
 Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes (no interval)
Sung in German with English surtitles
Please note:
This opera contains scenes of nudity and violence
* Jette Parker Young Artist
'Dance Salome, dance for me'. At these words King Herod's stepdaughter, the sensuous Salome, begins her famous Dance of the Seven Veils to arouse him. In return, she demands the head of John the Baptist on a silver charger: if the religious prophet she desired had refused her kiss in life, his severed head will not be able to refuse her lips in death.
Even though Strauss's operatic setting of the tale in a single act is over a century old it still has the power to shock as well as enthrall. On stage the story has provoked scandal " violence and nudity are inevitably part of its nature " not least with Oscar Wilde's play, upon which Strauss based his opera. A similarly potent combination of sex and religion inspired David McVicar to a stunning and popular production of Faust for The Royal Opera, and he now returns with that same heady mixture of themes to explore the psychology of its hypnotically degenerate central character. Es Devlin's art-deco-inspired designs evoke physical and moral decay in a grand setting, and Nadja Michael performs a demanding central role for which she has become well known. With the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House under the baton of Philippe Jordan bringing their dazzling orchestral virtuosity to Strauss's stunning showpiece of a score, this promises to be a white-hot staging of a seering operatic tour de force.
Credits
Composer
Richard Strauss
Director
David McVicar
Designs
Es Devlin
Lighting
Wolfgang Göbbel
Choreography
Andrew George
Performers
Conductor
Philippe Jordan
Salome
Nadja Michael
Herodias
Michaela Schuster
Page to Herodias
Daniela Sindram
Herod
Thomas Moser
Narraboth
Joseph Kaiser
Jokanaan
Michael Volle
First Nazarene
Iain Paterson
Second Nazarene
Andrew Mayor
First Soldier
Christopher Sist
Second Soldier
Alan Ewing
First Jew
Adrian Thompson
Second Jew
Martyn Hill
Third Jew
Hubert Francis
Fourth Jew
Ji-Min Park*
Fifth Jew
Jeremy White
A Cappadocian
Vuyani Mlinde*
Slave
Pumeza Matshikiza*
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