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Despite being forbidden by King Herod, Narraboth (who is besotted with Salome) gives in to her insistent pleas and shows her the prophet. However, on seeing Jokanaan, Salome is entirely overcome with sexual desire for him and obsesses over his lips, his hair, his skin, his eyes. This is too much for Narraboth to bear, who kills himself after witnessing this. Later, King Herod, Salome's stepfather, orders her to dance for him in return for whatever she wants. Against her mother's will, Salome dances for Herod, but then demands the severed head of Jokanaan served to her on a silver platter. This considerably distresses King Herod , but after many attempts to change her mind, he finally grants Salome her wish.
This is the first time I have been to such a large scale opera, and indeed I was coming as a stranger to Salome, having never seen a production of it before in my life. So whilst I cannot offer an expert's analysis of the production, I can let you know how it appears to someone experiencing it for the first time. The production took a contemporary spin on things, and its consistent focus on My Little Ponies made it, I imagine, quite unique.
The production starts in almost pitch black darkness, behind red rope barriers, suggesting King Herod to be like a celebrity. The singing here was beautiful and haunting, setting up the dark theme that permeates through the rest of the opera.
The cistern in which Jokanaan (played by David Soar) is kept was completely stripped back. It was bare apart from a huge clinical light and a large sheet of plastic, from which pink high-heeled shoes protruded. I'm not entirely sure why the prophet was wearing pink high- heels, or what it was meant to symbolise. Throughout the scene, a projection of Jokanaan's lips was on the wall, and we could see his lips moving live as he sung. It was very intriguing and unsettling. In order to make the projections, Soar had to wear an almost muzzle like contraption around his face which I felt was very powerful as it physically represented the barrier between Salome and Jokanaan, as well as illustrating how Jokanaan was imprisoned and treated as an animal by King Herod.
The cistern in which Jokanaan (played by David Soar) is kept was completely stripped back. It was bare apart from a huge clinical light and a large sheet of plastic, from which pink high-heeled shoes protruded. I'm not entirely sure why the prophet was wearing pink high- heels, or what it was meant to symbolise. Throughout the scene, a projection of Jokanaan's lips was on the wall, and we could see his lips moving live as he sung. It was very intriguing and unsettling. In order to make the projections, Soar had to wear an almost muzzle like contraption around his face which I felt was very powerful as it physically represented the barrier between Salome and Jokanaan, as well as illustrating how Jokanaan was imprisoned and treated as an animal by King Herod.
After Narraboth's death, we move into the main palace, his blood lying in a puddle on the floor as a looming warning to the audience of what will happen. There was a bit of a bombardment of the senses as more and more things started happening on stage all at the same time - including a woman being dunked in a tank for some reason, and a ginormous, headless carcass of a My Little Pony being dragged on, beaten and then disembowelled - it's entrails being a string of flowers. All this time I just wasn't quite sure where to look.
During all this, Allison Cook's Salome stands vacantly like some sort of deranged Barbie, with her long blonde hair and petite pink shirt. She was really quite freaky and conveyed the dark essence of the story just in the way she stood. She was excellent at capturing the blind lust Salome has for Jokanaan, and her mad, demented obsession over him was particularly evident as she ordered to have his head. Her stage presence was arresting. I also thought Michael Colvin as King Herod was excellent, vividly communicating the change in his mental state as he realises the gravity of Salome's demands through both his physicality and his voice.
The music itself is wonderful and the repeated melodies in the singing are very clever, picking up on and imitating some qualities of every day speech. I have to say that it is accessible, even if you do have to look at the surtitles once in a while despite it being in English! The orchestra is brilliant and received a huge round of applause at the end of the evening. It's excellence was particularly evident in the Dance of the Seven Veils, where, traditionally, Salome performs a seductive dance for King Herod. However, here the dance was mainly performed by a set of four Barbie like dancers. Personally, I'm not sure how well modern hip-hop dancing, complete with twerking, fits with classical orchestral music. For me this particular attempt to fuse a story set thousands of years ago and music written over a hundred years ago with modern dance styles just didn't sit quite right.
So, whilst admittedly having a couple of confusing elements, the production as a whole was very striking. Importantly, it was also very accessible and it would be amazing to see more young people in the audience as it really is an interesting story and magnificent music that was performed exceptionally by a first class orchestra and cast.