From the '60s onwards there has been no shortage of top-flight of
Salomes, among them the Solti/Nilsson recording by Decca in
1966 and von Karajan with Behrens and Agnes Baltsa for EMI in 1978, both
with the Vienna Philharmonic and both outstanding. Nevertheless, Strauss's
shocker wears well, and the opportunity to hear two digitally
remastered versions on the Berlin Classics label, both with the Dresden
Staatskapelle under, respectively, Otmar Suitner and Joseph Keilberth and
both with the title role sung by Christel Goltz, is an irresistible opportunity
for comparisons.
Based on a poem by Oscar Wilde, the fin-de-siècle decadence of Salome
lacks none of the fascination of Strauss's shocker, though today's audiences
may well react more tolerantly to the story of Salome's erotic obsession
with the Christian prophet Jokanaan, imprisoned by her despotic step-father
Herod. When he rejects her she demands his life - more precisely, his head
- after her father has rashly sworn that he will grant her any wish in exchange
for a sexy dance. Superficially the opera could be taken as a grim parable
for over-indulgent parents; but there is far more to it than that, not least
a deep ambivalence about the conflict between power and vulnerability, love
and hate and even good old-fashioned right and wrong. Salome rejects wealth,
luxury and the love of her Centurion suitor, for fantasy and, in the end,
death. Strauss's voluptuous score demands acute insights into the personalities
of the protagonists.
Though Suitner's relatively recent recording of these two performances is
the more promising in terms of audio fidelity it is not easy to choose between
them. The Keilberth is the more thrilling and the Suitner - orchestrally
at least - the more tense and atmospheric, aided, as it is, by the resonant
acoustic of the Lukaskirche, Dresden; but problems of balance occur in both.
The Keilberth suffers severely from the dim studio sound of the original
mono broadcast, though the singers fare better than the orchestra in this
respect and, disgracefully, it lacks a libretto. On the other hand, Suitner's
orchestra is often strident compared with Keilberth's silky approach and,
after fifteen years, the youthful bloom on Goltz's voice has faded so that
some passages are mere shadows of her earlier confident and. subtle
interpretation. She is, however, surrounded by convincing characterisations
from the rest of the cast. Bernd Aldenhoff's Herod reeks of evil, while in
Suitner's in moments of high excitement Helmut Melchert tends to sound more
like Leporello having a bad day than a despotic ruler. Josef Herrmann (Jokanaan)
is a more powerful holy man than Ernst Gutstein and Inger Karén a
more truly dotty Herodias than Siw Ericsdotter. But everything turns on the
central figure, and as the final scene drives towards its violent conclusion
the question remains: is Salome merely a spoiled brat with dysfunctional
parents or an unloved and abused woman struggling to free herself from a
web of depravity? Goltz tends towards the former (and, it could be said,
less believable) approach. Goltz was a celebrated soprano in her day, and
in the Keilberth performance is vocally in full command of the part and her
repeated demand for "den Kopf des Jokanaan" has an authentic chill. In the
Suitner - unlike the turmoil and despair that distinguish Nilsson's blazing
interpretation - she often sounds strangely detached from an emotional
involvement with the drama (though, yet again, it is possible to argue that
Salome was more ice maiden than hot chick)
Clearly Strauss was not aiming at the popular success he achieved six years
later with Der Rosenkavalier. His mastery, however, is unmistakable,
with sweeping melodies and majestic orchestral sound. This is nowhere more
seductively on display than in what must surely be the strangest "love duet"
in all opera, as Salome sings alone and intimately of her love and disillusion
to the severed head of Jokanaan with passages of atonality lending an added
dimension of horror to the scene.
The opera has many facets, and the variety of possible interpretations it
receives is alone sufficient justification for its continuing revival. There
is no such thing as a benchmark Salome, though few can match, either
vocally or orchestrally, Fritz Reiner in the late forties with Ljuba Welitsch
or, with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with Inge Borkh in the mid-fifties.
Regrettably, apart from a pirated Metropolitan Opera performance with Welitsch,
a complete Reiner Salome has never been released on disc. The full
gamey flavour of Reiner/Borkh's 1954-56 Salome (Salome's Dance and
the final scene) can be savoured, together with scenes from Electra,
on a remastered CD (BMG Classics, 60874).
Roy Brewer
See also
Comparative review by Marc Bridle
Article by Len Mullenger
