A seductive Salome served up in style
Inspired by the bestial atmosphere of Pasolini’s Salò –a film that examines the pathology of Fascist decadence – David Mcvicar’s production of Salome still packs a punch after 10 years in the Covent Garden repertory. Imaginatively designed by Es Devlin, it takes place in a basement abattoir stained with filth and beyond the boundaries of decency. Quite what the pious Jews and Nazarenes are doing in such a hellhole is never made clear, but it’s certainly a plausible setting for Salome’s transgressive embrace of a severed head and Herod’s murderous caprices.
The show’s coup de théâtre is the staging of the Dance of the Seven Veils through a hallucinatory enfilade of rooms in which Salome and her stepfather act out their fantasies. It’s a brilliantly handled sequence, freshened up for this crisply rehearsed revival directed by Barbara Lluch. But what the concept doesn’t deliver is any sense of the torrid, exultant eroticism that courses through the music from its opening bars – for the composer Richard Strauss and the librettist Oscar Wilde, perversion exudes a rich heady perfume; here it simply stinks of the sewers.
Henrik Nánási conducts, his approach soft-grained, almost plush – the orchestra, on cracking form, is let off the leash only for the two magnificent interludes, where the colours coruscate and the volume overwhelms. Perhaps the tension needs to be twisted more tautly in the latter half of the evening, but the slack could be a side-effect of Nánási’s consideration for singers up against a barrage of sound.
The cast is generally strong, marred only by an under-projected Herod (John Daszak) and a crudely caricatured Herodias (Michaela Schuster). Elsewhere there is much to impress, from an excellent quintet of Jews to David Butt Philip’s ardent Narraboth. Michael Volle is Jokanaan: although he’s sufficiently imposing vocally, it’s a pity that the majestic prophet has been made to look like a dirty old tramp, exuding none of the physical beauty and moral dignity that so entrances Salome and charges their encounter with dangerously seductive intensity.
But in the title role, Malin Byström triumphs. Previously I admit to thinking of this Swedish soprano as merely reliable, useful and versatile – she’s sung Mozart, Rossini and Verdi at Covent Garden in recent seasons. Now I feel that I’ve underrated her. Here is an exceptional performance, thunderously acclaimed at her solo curtain call and far superior to either of her predecessors in this production.
This Salome is no teenage virgin or simpering spoilt-brat innocent – Byström has neither the timbre nor the personality for that. Instead, she plays her as a sophisticated young starlet accustomed to getting what she wants when she wants and calculating every step of the game towards what is effectively an orgasmic suicide.
All this is conveyed with a surefooted skill that never descends to cheap histrionics, matched to highly intelligent navigation through music that wasn’t written with her sort of lyric voice in mind. Byström paces herself cannily, keeping enough fuel back to deliver a thrillingly uninhibited account of the agony and ecstasy of the final scene.
Not for the first time this season, the house seemed heavily papered: one has the general impression that it’s been hard to sell seats to capacity in recent months. This could be ascribed to an unfortunate choice of repertory, the shortage of star power, steep ticket prices in an era of wage stagnation, or a combination of all three of these factors. It could also be a symptom of the audience’s more permanent migration towards HD cinema broadcasts – and that is seriously worrying.