Soaring Salome rises above the sleaze

Salome (Royal Opera House) Verdict: Revolting, but some great singing

ANYONE for necrophilia? Sexploitation? Decadence? The odd severed head? Wild (or Wilde) anachronisms? Then this is the show for you, with a wonderful Swedish soprano making her bow at our premier opera house.

She is Malin Bystrom (pictured), echoing uncannily the sensational debut of Gota Ljungberg as Salome at Covent Garden in 1924.

Like her compatriot, Bystrom has the lissom looks for the role of Salome and the glorious voice to soar into Richard Strauss’s arching melodies. Sadly, things have moved fast since David McVicar’s misguided production was first seen in 2008. Nude and semi-nude women look out of place today and the antics with John the Baptist’s decapitated head have the wrong overtones. McVicar, who sets the action of Oscar Wilde’s play in Strauss’s time, does not even know how things would have been done in a Germanic setting during that era. To ignorance he adds the folly of someone who thinks that he is showing up decadence and exploitation when he is simply being decadent and exploitative.

Two German survivors from 2008, baritone Michael Volle and mezzo Michaela Schuster, sing strongly as Jokanaan (John) and Herodias, and British tenor John Daszak portrays the lascivious Herod superbly. Small roles are very well taken and the orchestra plays at its best for the Hungarian maestro Henrik Nanasi.

The sets by Es Devlin are excruciatingly boring and Salome’s fabled Dance Of The Seven Veils is so overloaded with Freudianism as to be yawn-inducing.

Actually I was glad McVicar did not require Ms Bystrom to strip. She had to get inundated with John the Baptist’s blood and by the end, thunderously applauded, she looked in need of a good shower. I certainly was . . .