Salome’s inner child is given a stage in Cyril Teste’s Vienna staging
Date of visit: April 10, 2025
Salome in the Late Romanticism and the Wiener Jahrhundertwende
There are many ways to interpret Salome, the Princess of Judea who demands the head of John the Baptist (Jochanaan). For a long time, the coexistence of beauty and gruesomeness in Salome has fueled both the fantasies and fascinations of painters and poets alike, resulting in a process of mythification that renders her far more than a mere Biblical figure.
In the aesthetic of Late Romanticism — with its well-defined fascination for inner life, decay, and human abyss, as evidenced in Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal (1857), Joris-Karl Huysmans’ À rebours (1884), and Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray (1890), among many others — Salome’s psychological complexity, physical beauty, and sex appeal offered fertile ground for artistic inspiration. A prime example is Gustave Moreau’s iconic painting L’Apparition (1876), one of the objects of obsession for the protagonist of À rebours. Mythicized as the femme fatale par excellence, Salome is at once fascinating and repulsive. Her mother, Herodias (also Hérodias or Hérodiade), undergoes a similar process of mythicization, as seen in Gustave Flaubert’s novella Hérodiade (1877), later turned into a four-act opera of the same name by Jules Massenet in 1881.
The aesthetics of the Wiener Jahrhundertwende (turn-of-the-century Vienna) — represented in painting by Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, and Egon Schiele; in literature by Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Arthur Schnitzler; and in music by Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss — continued and deepened the obsessions of Late Romanticism. (For those who are interested, this well-written article by André Schwarz offers an overview of the period.) In parallel with the rise of psychoanalysis, particularly the study of hysteria, a disorder often attributed to women, as in Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud’s Studien über Hysterie (1895), the female figure became increasingly eroticized and alienated, viewed as a source of both danger and decay. Kokoschka’s only play, Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen (1907), is a striking example of this.
Richard Strauss’ Salome (1905), based on Oscar Wilde’s play Salomé (1891) — written in French, then translated and dramatically condensed in a German libretto by poetess Hedwig Lachmann — belongs squarely to the aesthetic flowering of the Wiener Jahrhundertwende and its obsessive fascination with the femme fatale figure. Strauss’ orchestration is musically lush and the drama psychologically demanding, weaving around this central figure a tapestry of the sublime and the grotesque, extreme aestheticization and brutal realism. In just over ninety minutes, the opera propels us on a fast-paced descent into the darkest recesses of the human mind.
Dramaturgically, it goes without saying, the opera offers a wealth of material and angles for exploration.
A “Delicate Monster”?
Baudelaire’s own description of Les Fleurs du Mal as a collection of “delicate monsters” encapsulates the characterization and fantasy of the femme fatale of his time. But staging Salome today demands deeper reflection on the psychological nuances of both the characters and the dramatic context. Is Salome a monster?might be the first question. The next, more urgent one would be: Why is she the way she is?
For the late Luc Bondy, in his (controversial) Salzburg Festival staging from 1992 (here it is reprised at the La Scala in Milan in 2007 with Nadja Michael and Falk Struckmann in the leading roles), Salome was comparable to Paris Hilton: spoiled beyond repair and entirely lacking in self-awareness. By contrast, French stage director Cyril Teste — discovered by Wiener Staatsoper’s chief dramaturg Sergio Morabito (who also serves as dramaturg for this production) and later invited to debut at the house in 2023 with this Salome — offers a completely different interpretation. “She’s an intelligent and refined lady,” he said on the very first day of rehearsal. In Teste’s vision, Salome is both a victim and a product of her upbringing, her environment slowly corroding the innate gentleness and refinement of her character.
Speaking as an opera dramaturg myself, I find Teste’s interpretation vastly more compelling than Bondy’s — which, while effective within the internal logic of that production, simplifies and dismisses the deep trauma at the root of Salome’s psychological fragmentation and eventual collapse.
In Teste’s staging, Salome’s original self — or perhaps the child she once was — is given literal embodiment through the presence of a young ballet dancer, dressed identically to the adult Salome. It is this child who performs the Dance of the Seven Veils, transforming it into a harrowing stage of raw psychological exposure. She is confused, at times afraid, visibly struggling to maintain a sense of self under Herodes’ invasive and perverted gaze. Magdalena Chowaniec’s brilliant choreography captures both evolution and disintegration through a series of symbolic gestures, culminating in the adult Salome embracing her younger self in a final, desperate attempt to shield her from Herodes.
The action unfolds in an elegant setting designed by Valérie Grall, presented as a typical großbürgerlichgathering. The opera opens in a stately dining room with high ceilings, subdued color tones, and flowing muslin curtains — a familiar, well-mannered evening at Herodes’ palace. Guests pretend to enjoy themselves, but their exaggerated gestures and forced laughter soon reveal a layer of hostility simmering beneath the surface. The time period is loosely situated in the 1920s to 1930s, evoked through the sleek, subtly modern costumes by Marie La Rocca (whose signature style blends historical reference with contemporary elegance).
Overlaying all this is a continuous stream of live video imagery by Rémy Nguyen, providing intimate visual access to the stage’s hidden currents — Herodes’ hand on Salome, her expression as she first hears Jochanaan’s voice from the cistern. This heightened realism and minimalistic elegance shift back and forth into symbolic terrain through Mehdi Toutain-Lopez’s video art and the poetic lighting of Julien Boizard, which guides us through a gradual palette transition from pure white (the opera’s beginning) to blood red (its final moments).
In tandem, these visual elements peel away the carefully constructed illusion of elegance and power. Layer by layer, the aesthetic mask of refinement dissolves into the raw cruelty and cynicism beneath — until all that remains is a cold, dark space where the intricacies of Salome’s inner world (and wounds) are laid bare.
A Psychological Deep Dive
Jennifer Holloway captures the many facets of Salome — her initial nonchalance, her longing, her frustration, and the depth of her suppressed anger — with organic precision, never once resorting to exaggeration. Her singing is rich and imposing, with nuanced articulations carefully shaped to reflect the shifts in Salome’s emotional state and her racing thoughts. Tomasz Konieczny’s Jochanaan, equally charismatic in bearing and in tone, brings to the prophet a dense, dark, and velvety timbre, perfectly suited to express the ever-growing tension between spiritual resolve and emerging carnal temptation. The dramatic and psychological sparring between Holloway and Konieczny is a genuine pleasure to watch.
As Narraboth, Hiroshi Amako’s warm tenor lends him both a convincing lyrical affectation and a deeply tragic vulnerability. He is a singer who clearly understands how to translate emotional nuance into vocal phrasing. The same can be said of Alma Neuhaus as the Page, whose elegant mezzo timbre and natural acting ability make her a deeply sympathetic figure — one whose personal affections are gradually eroded by the weight of duty.
Jörg Schneider portrays Herodes with a healthy dose of self-irony: perverse, yet at the same time deeply blasé. It is a legitimate interpretation of the role, though personally I prefer seeing the Tetrarch as a capricious, almost childlike figure, whose impulses and outbursts reflect Strauss’s brilliant orchestration of his fear and instability. Herodes’ music is constantly shifting, almost breathless in its neuroses, and a more emotionally impulsive portrayal might have served that volatility better.
Stephanie Houtzeel, a captivating Herodias whose flirtatious manner functions as a defense against irrelevance, makes an effective counterpart to Schneider’s Herodes. Her velvety voice can turn thorny in an instant. I particularly appreciated how she leans into the clichés of the “society lady” with just the right touch of menace, adding layers of unease beneath the glitter.
Yoel Gamzou, conducting the Orchestra of the Wiener Staatsoper, clearly understands that the brass section is the dramatic engine of Strauss’ orchestral writing, and he pushes it accordingly — and persuasively. There are thrilling moments where dense lyricism is shattered by plunges into the darkest orchestral abyss, and Gamzou embraces these extremes fearlessly, which is admirable. However, there are times when the music seems to soar independently from the singers and risks drowning their voices. While the orchestral textures and intensity are superbly rendered, they are not always calibrated in a way that supports the vocal lines; rather, they occasionally run parallel to them. When this occurs, the dramatic clarity suffers, and the emotional coherence can fragment — as in the passage of the Jews’ argument about Jochanaan’s identity, which teeters on the edge of sonic disarray.
Nonetheless, Gamzou’s conducting is generally engaged and intelligent, marked by fine dramatic instinct and a keen understanding of Strauss’ emotional architecture.
Upcoming shows at the Wiener Staatsoper from May 1 to May 10, 2026.
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