At first sight, the parallel between Salome and the fashion world might seem fairly intuitive, but someone had to try and translate it in a credible work. Claus Guth had the idea and did it, sparingly enough to open up the narrative to other, more nuanced possibilities, in order to bring out the other elements that decorate the script. In the first act, we see a Salome (Olesya Golovneva) who is half teenager-half adult – the victim of a restlessness that can only be explained by the mixture of self-discovery and the anguish of the oppressive textile kingdom of Herodes (Thomas Blondelle – let’s say it straight away, the big surprise of the evening) – dressed in a very chaste and immaculate white nightdress, surrounded by others of different ages. The world they inhabit is made up of other apathetic characters whose gestures are meticulous, reminiscent of the dolls that may have populated the young girl’s world before she was confronted by Jochanaan (Jordan Shanahan), his passionate, visceral love who emerges from a pile of cloth and becomes an object of desire – so coveted, so desired, that the refusal to surrender to the madness of the Princess of Judea condemns the phopher to decapitation.
If vocally the performance of the most demanding parts of the role is not always as incisive and transparent, if the articulation of the words can be lacking (notably during the third scene Jochanaan with his prophetic voice, his full-bodied breath, perfectly at ease in this monolith that is Christ’s preacher – we will long remember the emotion of his transcendentally inspired singing during his Tochter Sodoms, komm mir nicht nahe!), Olesya Golovneva makes up for this with a lightning intensity of interpretation. She is one of those (rare) sopranos capable of the most unsuspected stage sacrifices to defend the director’s approach and create the bridge between the written work and the palcoscenico. Dance, pirouetting, incessant ascents and descents, all at the same time as body and face express the violence endured by the testing psychology of this outsize character.
The fourth scene offers us the fantastic opportunity to see the excellent Thomas Blondelle – undoubtedly one of the best Herodes of recent years, with the theatricality, the extravagance and the grandiloquence that the role demands, all with a perfect mastery of the Sprechgesang that allows us to appreciate the beauty of this voice with its generous high notes and at the summit of its abilities: a perfect heir to Gehard Stolze, but even more accomplished than his predecessor – a kind of Yves Saint-Laurent with all the exaggeration that circumstances allow, accompanied by the extraordinary Herodias of Evelyn Herlitzius: any orchestra, however nervous, is able to overpower this still full-bodied voice when she delivers her Heiss’ sie schweigen, sie langweilen mich! Both in her dress – the turban on her head, the necklace, the bracelets – and in her behaviour – the superstition and cartomancy, the slightly heavy but still haughty gait – there is the prefiguration of a Klytämnestra – between two such ungrateful mothers, the boundary is very fine – from an intemperate and subversive bourgeoisie.
The other roles are defended with talent – especially the 5 Jews and during the vocal panels of radiant brightness and cavernous darkness between Kieran Carrel’s Narraboth and Stephanie Wake-Edwards’s Page – and it is delightful to feel the cohesion that unites the members of the Deutsche Oper Ensemble.
The direction of Keri-Lynn Wilson may be surprising in some of its choices; however, the emotion remains present, with moments of a lyricism that would seem almost eternal in opposition (complement?) to the destructive violence of others, the ensemble coexisting with great equilibrium. The score is read and performed taking into account the means deployed (on stage and in the pit), with particular attention paid to the legibility of the sound emanating from all sides. It’s a way of showing great respect for one of Strauss’s masterpieces, the listening pleasure of which is guaranteed in this production.
Casting: Herodes (Thomas Blondelle), Herodias (Evelyn Herlitzius), Salome (Olesya Golovneva), Jochanaan (Jordan Shanahan), Narraboth (Kieran Carrel), Ein Page (Stephanie Wake-Edwards), 1. Jude/Ein Sklave (Chance Jonas-O’Toole), 2. Jude (Thomas Cilluffo), 3. Jude (Jörg Schörner), 4. Jude (Burkhard Ulrich), 5. Jude (Gerard Farreras), 1. Nazarener (Joel Allison), 2. Nazarener (Geon Kim), 1. Soldat (Andrew Harris), 2. Soldat (Tobias Kehrer), Ein Cappadocier (Stephen Marsh). Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin. Opernballett der Deutschen Oper Berlin.
(For further informations) Link to the Deutsche Oper Berlin website: Salome (2025 production) – Deutsche Oper Berlin
