Salome Theater an den Wien Vienna
Jan 28th 2020
This was a humdinger of a new production and I am very glad that I managed to catch it.
The set was simple but versatile – many steps and platforms that were very well used by the director so that they eye was always being entertained and there was no static ‘park and bark’ – although that would be difficult in a work such as this. Colours were neutral – greys and buffs – and upstage centre was Herod’s palace behind gauze while there was a clear circular cistern with a lid and the walls at the size were constructed of monumental blocks which gave a certain prison-like quality to the stage picture.
The most unique feature of the production was the use of puppet figures for some central characters, most notably Salome. These were held and manipulated by the singers (!!) and their appearance was similar to that of the singer him/herself but with a grotesque and parodic appearance. For the red-headed Salome there was what I am sure was a deliberate reference to the iconic ‘look’ of Bette Davis as Baby Jane. I am not sure of that was deliberate – need to think a little more about how or why it might be…
These puppets represented, I believe, the public/known face of the gradually, as the drama progressed and at certain moments, the ‘real’ person would appear and communicate with the other characters. At climactic times, the puppet figure was set aside completely and by the end, Salome, as someone who had completely discovered herself and knew who she was, and was no longer merely the vison and object of others’ eyes, had rejected it completely (and the word rejected is absolutely the right one for what had happened dramatically) and her ‘other self’ was just lying, corpse-like on the stage. The use of puppet figures is no longer the radical step it once was but I was impressed by how this was done here. When Naraboth kills himself as Salome has started to reveal her obsession with Jokanaan – and had temporarily rejected her other self, he stabbed himself and fell on the puppet figure – the Salome with whom he was in love. Very smart.
Jokanaan and his ‘puppet’ figure were dealt with somewhat differently. His puppet arose from the cistern a gauntly ghastly skeleton making Salome’s ‘er ist scherlich’ (if that is correct) utterly understandable and this figure always remained static, suspended by chains whenever Jokanaan was on stage. The ‘real’ Jokanaan was a large bulky male figure, completely blue-black from head to toe. A striking image
For Salome certainly, the drama, at one level revealed, through her gradual until complete rejection of the puppet her growing awareness of who she was and how she could and would no longer simple be the person whom others s\w but her own true self. For Jokanaan, he always ‘knew’ himself and so his puppet had a slightly different role as this was how he was initially seen by Salome and then, as she became aware of her own feelings, rejecting her puppet, so her attention went to the actual person, not the puppet – if that makes sense.
The Dance was fascinating as there were a very large number of people involved (particularly dancers) as well as Salome and a review I read said that its central idea was Salome’s recollection of early sexual assault but, tbh I am not sure I ‘saw’ that perhaps I was not focused enough) so will need to see again to check up on this interpretation – but the idea of it being a collective performance was a good and vividly original one I though.
Anyway now the vocals. Marlis Petersen was a stunning Salome. She was at the limit of her voice I think but there was not a sense of strain and the slight almost pushing edge quality that she had, particularly in the climaxes (as opposed to the effortless trumpet of a Nilsson or Borkh or the tonal beauty of Caballe) was, I thought absolutely right for the character. John Daszak as Herod had a much larger voice than the smaller often more piercing one that we hear in this role and he was a stronger, and in that way, more threatening and powerful figure than he can often seems. He is King of Judea after all and to make him merely a twisted self-absorbed sexual psychopath, while often effective, is not necessarily the whole or only picture that can be made – but there’s always a place for a sexual psychopath in opera isn’t there!
All in all, an excellent evening and confirmation (if it were needed) that Theatre an den Wien is the place to go for thoughtfully engaging and often exciting productions.