3 immortal pieces from the opera SALOME by Strauss- with the best interpretations from YouTube (Hits, Best of)

Richard Strauss first saw the theater piece “Salome” in 1902 in a production by Max Reinhard, and three years later created an expressionist sound world that seemed to break with everything previously known. Despite the now thirteen years that had passed since the play’s first performance, the piece, set to music as an opera, met with open hostility from traditionalists. But the premiere in Dresden became a sensation and “Salome” began its triumphal march around the world.

Salome wants to kiss Jochanaan’s mouth

This passage leads to one of the highlights of the opera. Jochanaan’s rejection (“Never, daughter of Babylon, daughter of Sodom”) riles Salome to the max, and she sings the kiss motif four times (“I will kiss your mouth Jochanaan”), which Strauss musically heightens to frenzy four times.

Listen to this captivating scene in a recording with Cheryl Studer. The American singer had a tremendous range in her repertoire, embodying 80 different roles in her stage career. When she recorded Salome in the 1990s, she was hailed as the best Salomé in a long time.

Niemals Tochter Babylons, Tochter Sodoms – Studer

The Dance of the Seven Veils

Herod wants Salome to dance for him and in return offers to grant her free wish. Salome agrees and performs the dance of the seven veils.
Salome is one of the most demanding roles for soprano. It demands volume, stamina, power and a thoroughly dramatic voice. After a long and challenging dance, the singer must master the tremendous final section that Strauss wrote for her. In every production, this leads to the question of whether the role can be separated into a dance part and a vocal part. At the premiere, Marie Wittich refused to perform the erotic dance herself.

This tradition has subsequently persisted. One of the few exceptions was the well-known American soprano Maria Ewing. She sang and danced the role and did so consistently. One veil after another falls to the floor until she actually presents herself stark naked.

Dance of the Seven Veils – Ewing

The tremendous desire of Salome

After the dance, she demands that Herod hand her the head of Jochanaan on a silver platter. Herod desperately tries to talk her out of the request, but Salome insists on the agreement. At Herod’s command, guards leave and appear a short time later with the head and the dish.
The final scene can only be described with one word: “ecstasy”. Possibly Strauss wrote the greatest ecstasy in opera history with the final song of Salome and the orchestral accompaniment. It ends with the famous dissonance on the sforzato, almost at the end of the opera and the C-sharp major resolution that follows.

We hear the 1949 version of Ljuba Welitsch. “Fritz Reiner, who once came of age in Dresden with the music of Richard Strauss, is on the podium in 1949 for a couple of ‘Salome’ performances that are even more in demand on the New York black market than any Broadway performances, and for which the tickets traded under the table break the then sound barrier of $100 a piece. The reason is red-haired, buxom and full of passionate Bulgarian temperament: Lyuba Velich has made a triumphant tour of Europe as the unleashed Salome with a deadly sweet little-girl voice, her fame has already preceded her, and the Metropolitan Opera debut will then be the pinnacle of her career. Before her voice quickly goes downhill, because of her all-consuming vocal technique, she carries even the sternest critics to breathless ovations.”

In the words of Jürgen Kesting (“Grosse Stimmen”), “Welitsch’s final song is, as a vibration of the senses, an assault on the listener’s nerves. Welitsch does not sing, she transforms into the character. The sound of her voice is at once pure and heated, clear and exquisitely colored. ‘I Kissed Your Mouth’ is an addictive orgasm.”

Final Scene – Welitsch/Reiner