SALOME

- the opera that catapulted Hildegard Behrens to stardom

Strauss imagined Salome as "a sixteen-year old Isolde," to be played "as a chaste virgin, an Oriental princess, with but the simplest, most dignified gestures..."

The great maestro Herbert von Karajan was of like mind, and he found his Salome in Hildegard Behrens - to this day the opera stage's most riveting Salome. Their recording, Ms. Behrens' first, has been digitally remastered and re-released by EMI as part of the Great Recordings of the Century series.

[Of anecdotal interest: An excerpt from the last track of this recording was used in the Merchant/Ivory film "A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries."]

Scenes from SALOME

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Set 1 Set 2

(Photo credits: ©Winnie Klotz, ©Johan Elbers
Courtesy: Metropolitan Opera; ©Misako Uryu)




    

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SALOME, an opera in one act by RICHARD STRAUSS (text after a French translation of the play by Oscar Wilde, based on the biblical character) premiered at the Dresden Opera 1905, it was a scandalous success* that played to the critics' consternation and the bishops' condemnation.

But what sounded controversial and disturbingly dissonant then is today loved for the lush orchestration and the intense beauty of its music.
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*Salome paid the bill for Strauss' villa