12/17/16 – Salome – 1pm

Metropolitan Opera

Salome
composed by Richard Strauss

Richard Strauss’s revolutionary score and scandalous Oscar Wilde–inspired drama took the world by storm at its premiere and continues to wow audiences today. Catherine Naglestad makes her Met debut in the tour-de-force role of Salome, part innocent and part sexual predator. Željko Lučić is her prophetic nemesis Jochanaan, John the Baptist. Gerhard Siegel is Herod, and Johannes Debus conducts.

Premiere: Dresden Court Opera, 1905. The story of this incendiary and powerful opera is derived from a brief biblical account: a young princess of Judea dances for her stepfather Herod and chooses as her reward the head of the prophet John the Baptist. This subject captured the imaginations of generations of visual artists, but its full possibilities were perhaps best realized in Oscar Wilde’s 1891 tragedy (which was banned from performance in several countries). Strauss’s score combines the grandeur of Wagner’s epics with the focus and emotional punch of the short Italian verismo operas.