Category:Salome--music (subject)

2008 (Jordan)

2008 (Sweete)

2012 (Lehnhoff)

Works of music on Salome

Overview

Richard Strauss's Salome premiered in Dresden on 9 December 1905 (starring Marie Wittich in the title role). It was an immediate success. In 1906 the opera was performed in a dozen theaters, including Graz, Cologne, Turin, Milan (under the direction of Arturo Toscanini), and finally, in Berlin (starring Emmy Destinn). In spite of the composer's invitation to look at the opera as nothing more than "a scherzo with a fatal conclusion," many regarded it as a gruesome middlebrow entertainment. When the opera opened at the New York Metropolitan Opera on 22 January 1907, accusations of vulgarity and indecency led to the cancellation of the show and the opera would not be performed again at the Met until 1934.

And yet, Strauss's Salome was an unstoppable success. In 1907 the French version of the opera premiered first in Brussels and then in Paris, where it opened on 8 May 1907 at the Théâtre du Châtelet under the direction of the composer. Aino Ackté played Salome in the 1907 Leipzig premiere as well as in the 1910 London premiere. In spite of the Met's boycott, the Salome-mania hit New York again at the Manhattan Opera House in 1909 with Mary Garden.

Among famous Salomes are Maria Jeritza, Maria Cebotari, Christle Goltz, Birgitt Nilsson, Josephine Barstow, Hildegard Behrens, Catherine Malfitano, <Maria Ewing (1980s); Karita Mattila and Nadja Michael (2000s)>, Probably the most famous of all was the Bulgarian soprano Ljuba Welitsch, who sang it in the presence of the composer at a performance given to mark his 80th birthday in Vienna in 1944.

Performing Salome (opera)

Hérodiade (Herodias / 1984 Delacôte / @1881 Massenet), video recording (opera) Hérodiade (Herodias / 1987 Prêtre / @1881 Massenet), sound recording (opera)

Bibliography

• Richard Strauss's Salome: which recording is best?

Performing Salome (dance)