BBC - Philharmonic - Dagmar Peckova

Salome the Opera (Peter Bronder performing as Herod)

Time: about AD 30. Place: the palace of the Tetrarch of Galilee, Herod Antipas, at Tiberias in Palestine. Herod is holding a midnight banquet on his birthday while guards keep watch on the cell in which the prophet Jokanaan (John the Baptist) is imprisoned for insulting Herod’s second wife, Herodias. Her first husband, Philip – Herod’s brother – was murdered by Herod 12 years earlier, after which Herod married Herodias. The young Syrian captain Narraboth looks longingly at Salome at the banquet. The Page, who loves Narraboth, tries to distract him by talking about the strange moon (‘like a woman who is dead’). Two of the guards talk about the Jews at Herod’s feast who continually argue about their religion. They hear Jokanaan’s voice from his cell prophesying that, ‘After me will come one whose sandals I am unworthy to unstrap.’ The guards discuss Jokanaan, one regarding him as ludicrous, the other as holy. A Cappadocian visitor to Herod’s court inquires about Jokanaan and is told that no one is allowed to see him.

Salome (who is referred to in the Bible only as ‘the daughter of Herodias’) leaves the banquet because she is upset by the way Herod stares lustfully at her. She too notices the moon – ‘she is like a silver flower, cold and chaste’. She hears Jokanaan’s voice and knows it belongs to the prophet who slanders her mother. Narraboth tries to persuade her to leave but she insists on seeing Jokanaan. The guards defy her but she knows Narraboth loves her and will do what she wants. He orders the guards to release Jokanaan.

Jokanaan rails against Herod and Herodias without naming them. Salome is fascinated by his eyes. Jokanaan refuses to speak to her but when he learns who she is he castigates Herodias again. Salome thinks his voice is like music. She declares her love for his white body, black hair and red lips and longs to kiss his mouth. Jokanaan is horrified – ‘Never, daughter of Babylon, daughter of Sodom, never!’ – and repulses her. Unable to bear to witness this, Narraboth kills himself. Jokanaan tells Salome to seek salvation from the Man in Galilee who is even now talking to his disciples. She wants none of this. ‘Let me kiss your mouth.’ Jokanaan curses her and returns to his cell.

Celia Franca as Salome in the first production of Oscar Wild's play which transmitted from Alexandra Palace in December 1949

Celia Franca as Salome in the first production of Oscar Wild's play which transmitted from Alexandra Palace in December 1949

Herod and Herodias enter, seeking Salome. Herod too is worried about the moon. ‘She has a strange look. She is like a mad woman who is seeking everywhere for lovers. She reels through the clouds like a drunken woman.’ He feels a cold wind blowing and hears the sound of mighty wings beating, though no-one else hears them. He slips in Narraboth’s blood and orders his body to be removed. Herod ignores Herodias’s plea to him not to stare at Salome and offers his stepdaughter wine, fruit and a throne. She refuses them all. Jokanaan’s voice is heard and Herodias wants him silenced but Herod says he is a great prophet who has seen God. This precipitates an argument among the Jews, who maintain that no-one has seen God since the prophet Elias. Two Nazarenes say that the man Jokanaan describes is the Messiah: he has turned water into wine and raised the dead. This appals Herod, who then asks Salome to dance for him and promises her anything she wants as a reward, even if it were half his kingdom. Salome makes him swear to fulfil this promise. Herodias tries to forbid the dance but to no avail.

After the dance Salome reveals her reward – the head of Jokanaan on a silver plate. Herodias is overjoyed but Herod is horrified and tries to tempt her with jewels, white peacocks, and the veil of the Temple (this sends the Jews into a paroxysm of fury). But Salome is adamant and Herod sends an executioner into the cell. Salome waits for sounds of death and when the executioner returns she seizes the head. She asks the head why Jokanaan never looked at her. If he had seen her as Salome, not the daughter of Herodias, he would have loved her – ‘the secret of love is greater than the secret of death’. Herod tells Herodias that her daughter is a monster. Something terrible will happen and they should return to the palace. Left alone, Salome sings ecstatically to the head and kisses its lips – they have a bitter taste, she says, not of blood but of love. Herod returns to see and hear this and orders his guards to crush Salome to death with their shields.

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Salome - The Story