Salome

What happens when the worst traits of a power-hungry prince incapable of resisting earthly pleasures, a morally corrupt, vengeful, manipulative woman, and a desire-driven but highly impressionable teenage girl all erupt at the same time upon the appearance of a holy man? Someone loses their head… What happens when the drama of a conventionbreaking Irish author, who reworks a biblical subject in a fiercely erotic and blood-soaked way, is adapted for the opera stage by a German composer who, through his musical inventions, pushes the genre to its ultimate limits? Modern opera is born… Oscar Wilde’s play was banned for decades by British censorship, which is why Parisian audiences were the first to see it on stage in 1896. Although the work was well received, barely a decade later its success was overshadowed by the opera based on it, whose triumphal path began in exactly the opposite way. While at the 1905 Dresden premiere of Richard Strauss’s music drama, for example, the performer of the extraordinarily demanding title role refused to dance the Dance of the Seven Veils, and both the music and the subject as a whole shocked the audience, today Salome has become one of the cornerstones of the international operatic repertoire, returning again and again in ever new interpretations. The OPERA’s new production is staged by Máté Szabó in a contemporary approach, while at the same time maintaining a connection with an earlier production by Zoltán Rátóti, as it also features reflections of the historically authentic set design which could be realized on the basis of excavations conducted on Mount Machaerus by Hungarian archaeologist Dr. Győző Vörös. The production is conducted by the OPERA’s principal conductor, Martin Rajna.