Salome is an adolescent girl showing her erotic charisma to stepfather Herod (excellent with cutting character tenor Michael Hendrick) specifically in the veil dance, not only to the entire court.

The opera “Salome” uses guest conductors who apply for the position of general music director in Wuppertal.

The quality of a conductor should quickly become apparent from the devilishly difficult score. Is this also a visitor-friendly selection process? In any case, Ari Rasilainen could have used a few additional rehearsals for the musical fine-tuning for the premiere. It is true that he kept the orchestra and singers together carefully and carefully differentiated the volume, which is not uncommon in this opera, and created a few striking climaxes. In detail, however, some things still sounded pretty immature.

Michiel Dijkema’s psychologizing production could use an even more precise musical focus. On the abstract stage, designed by the director himself, a funnel-shaped hole not only shows the dungeon of the prophet Jokanaan, but is also an ambiguous symbol of the abysses that open up here. In this impressive stage design, Dijkema shows the event as a chamber play.

Salome is an adolescent girl who specifically uses her erotic charisma on stepfather Herod (excellent with a cutting character tenor Michael Hendrick) and the entire court, and not just in the veil dance. In view of this decadent society, which is unnecessarily caricatured by the director (with an unpleasantly cliched Jewish quintet arguing), their fascination with the angry prophet Jokanaan is understandable, especially since Thomas Gazheli sings him brilliantly with youthful force. The fact that Salome, of all people, resists her adult sexuality leads to catastrophe: a deep black “coming-of-age” tragedy of an adolescent girl who is both the perpetrator and the victim. A timeless story, and so the costumes (Tatjana Ivschina) mix antique and modern uniforms, which looks unintentionally strange.

The petite, extremely young-looking Christina Baggio is an impressive actress for Salome, even if the murderous role is (still) a bit big for the quite lyrical voice. The Italian has an exciting timbre, the design, despite some gorgeous moments, is a little unbalanced, and the text’s intelligibility is unfortunately poor. For the direction she is a stroke of luck with her committed acting.

Herodias is sung powerfully but one-dimensionally loudly by Dubravka Mušovic, while Captain Narraboth, who is unhappily in love with Salome, is sung by Emilio Pons solidly but with a lot of tenor sobs. In the smaller parts, in addition to decent vocal performances, there are unfortunately also total failures.

All in all, the Wuppertal theaters manage to produce a remarkable “Salome”.

http://www.wuppertaler-rundschau.de/kultur/erwachende-sexualitaet-die-ueber-leichen-geht-aid-1.5037536

by Stefan Schmöe

Wuppertaler Rundschau