Opera North

Strauss’ most intense and shocking opera, Salome, continues Opera North’s successful series of dramatic operas presented in concert.

Salome, the teenage step-daughter of King Herod, is an object of fascination and lust for the guard Narraboth, and for Herod himself. Agreeing to perform the ‘Dance of the Seven Veils’ for her step-father, she demands a macabre gift in return: the severed head of the man she herself desires, the imprisoned prophet Jokanaan (John the Baptist).

Every moment of the story unfolds with unflinching vividness, illuminating the darkest corners of a world that has lost all moral compass. Concentrated into just 100 intense minutes, this is opera at its most extreme.

Based on Oscar Wilde’s play of the same title, Richard Strauss’ third opera Salome was an immediate, albeit scandalous, success when it premiered in 1905, its Biblical theme permeated with disturbing layers of violence and eroticism. The magnificently rich and intricate score, written for vast orchestral forces, is both ferociously exciting and surprisingly lyrical, building to a feverish climax that has never lost its capacity to chill the blood.