Fiona Chisholm
ARE Cape Town audiences up for Salome? “Oh yes”, says Cape Town Opera’s artistic director Matthew Wild of Richard Strauss’s scandalous opera opening March 15 at Artscape Theatre for three performances. But out of respect for those who might baulk at the subject matter, he is also taking into account that the composer insisted stage performances counter the excesses of the work with a certain restraint.
“Strauss once rebuked a Dresden soprano, who was getting too enthusiastically carnal in the final scene with the severed head of John the Baptist: ‘No, no, my dear. The music is disgusting enough already’”.
Wild recently returned from sub-zero Wiesbaden after making his German directorial debut in a new production of Janacek’s Katya Kabanova.
Now rehearsing Salome he said the opera had shocked and seduced audiences in equal measure since its premiere in Dresden in 1905. “This very scandal helped the work to travel to 50 opera houses in two years after its premiere. Vienna and London had to wait longer because of their more prudish local censors.
“The opera’s sensuous score, biblical subject matter, and heady mixture of sex and violence still pack a punch for a modern audience. Rather than wallowing in too much realistic sex or violence we are looking at the piece as a modern myth with some surprising twists. We see it as a psychosexual case study of a severely dysfunctional royal family, unable to find absolution for past sins.”
The role of the Salome is fiendishly difficult. It has to be sung by a soprano youthful and sensuous enough to convincingly dance the Seven Veils for the delight of Herod, yet be so depraved that she insists her reward be the head of John the Baptist (called Jochanaan) on a silver platter.
British soprano Allison Oakes, a rapidly rising Wagnerian singer, takes on that role and has already performed it successfully in Bern and Gutrune.
Two Americans, both experienced in this type of heavy repertoire, complete the leading trio. Richard Paul Fink is Jochanaan (John the Baptist) and Allan Glassman is Herod while local favourites Violina Angulov and Lukhanyo Moyake respectively play Herod’s wife Herodias and Narraboth the guard.
Cape Town Opera is delighted to have secured conductor Gerard Korsten for his long overdue return to Cape Town and due to the extreme difficulty of the music have programmed more rehearsals than usual for the enlarged Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra. Strauss scored the music for 150 players but 75 players will handle the slightly reduced orchestration.
The opera is set in King Herod’s Jerusalem Palace and Wild asked UK designer Conor Murphy to create the rear exit of a modernist palace – the unglamorous back end, where all the air-conditioning ducts and overflow pipes and plumbing were hidden from public view.
“He responded with a spectacularly minimalist, sweeping vision of that request which is very beautiful and something quite new for Artscape. This set will be lit by Kobus Rossouw and Michael Mitchell is responsible for the costumes.”
Murphy has already designed different versions of Salome– Oscar Wilde’s play, Strauss’ opera, and the obscure rival operatic version composed by Antoine Mariotte.
The first about 20 years was a workshop production for the National Theatre Studio.
“I have always loved the Wilde play as the language is so rich and descriptive. We had absolutely no budget so I had to try to ‘design’ it with nothing and hopefully allow the language to shine.
“We had as our starting point the empty studio space at the NT which is a modern concrete building. We used the existing entrances, some tape to mark out a floor area and a ladder which became the cistern for Jochanaan. A circular piece of wood on the floor marked where Salome started and returned to.
“I have never been very interested in scenery for the sake of it and this was another moment when I realised that we actually needed very little scenery to allow the play to unfold clearly. It did help that we had an incredible cast.”
Ten years later in Montpellier he did Strauss’s opera and the lesser known version by Mariotte, both productions very different in atmosphere.
“The Mariotte was slightly darker in tone and the libretto was closer to the original play. We did both versions, with two different casts, on the same set which was a good way for the audience to compare the pieces. The costumes were slightly different for each piece.
“So the new production in Cape Town will actually be my third time designing a Salome set and I’m very excited. Each time I work with a new director it brings something different to the approach and I’m looking forward to working again with Matthew as we had a very good experience last year with West Side Story.
l Performances of Salome are on March 15, 17 and 7.30pm. Book: 0861 915 8000.