Salome

Oscar Wilde's dramatic text of Salome is based on the biblical story of Salome, daughter of Herodias and stepdaughter to Herod. The sensational story highlights the brutality, dysfunction and outright cruelty of Herod's household, in addition to revealing the intensely manipulative and sensual nature of Salome herself. Despite the historical setting of the work its connection to actual biblical lore is only referential; the work certainly invites a contemporary treatment, though finding and drawing those parallels while maintaining the grandeur of Strauss' towering score can be challenging. Unfortunately, the 2019 Spoleto presentation transported the work in a contemporary setting but did not succeed in realizing a production comparable to the typical standards of Spoleto, a festival that is committed to presenting the highest level of contemporary, classical, and completely new works from mid-May to June each year. The 42nd anniversary of the seventeen-day festival in 2019 featured opera, dance, music, and theatre.The French directorial team of Caurier and Leiser chose to set the production on the rooftop of an unspecified building in some urban location where a high-end contemporary nightclub-style dance party was taking place, complete with bouncers (donning ear monitors and sunglasses), heavy drinking, and a seemingly lavish atmosphere of decadent excess. The qualifier “seemingly” is used due to the essentially bare stage that featured only a single tree (on a rooftop) in addition to a table and three chairs. As noted in the program material, the concept made a deliberate attempt to distance the action from both the historical setting and any connection with realism as “the show is a metaphor; it reflects for us who we are as human beings—even our most monstrous sides.” That said, the production seemed to embody a rather crude, amateurish approach to the lofty material. The grandeur of Strauss's musical score is among the best I have heard at Spoleto in the half-dozen or so times that I have reviewed works at the festival. Conducted by Steven Sloane, the Spoleto USA orchestra is a tremendous compilation of both professional national and international musicians as well as both local and regional student interns. The Spoleto orchestra speaks very highly of the festivals' mission to include a huge educational component as part of the programming.The cast was nothing short of brilliant. As the lead character Salome, Melanie Henley Heyn gave a solid performance both as a soprano vocalist as well as an actress. Her very focused, compact, physical delivery matched with her extraordinary vocal strength and her musicianship made an outstanding core of this production. In scenes reminiscent of Scarface and Reservoir Dogs, ancillary roles of Herod (Paul Groves), Herodias (Edna Pronchnik), Jokanaan (Erik Van Heyningen), and Narraboth (Zach Borichevsky) all appeared to be deeply immersed into the cruelly despotic world of Herod. Heyningen as Jokanaan (John the Baptist) was a particularly anchoring element of the plot and remained (apparently) a solid figure of good in a world that was inherently evil. Directorial choices (mentioned later) raised questions about Jokanaan that are not apparent in the text; however, his devotion to God superseded Salome's obsession and lust for his body and he remained the sole pious figure in the work. The entire cast was ultimately superb and capable of tackling this fiercely challenging opera.However, the concept and staging choices were ultimately subpar for this festival. I felt that there might be problems when, shortly after the orchestra finished tuning, the stage was bombarded by a recording of Queen's “Another One Bites the Dust,” perhaps looking for a comic response but, like so many of the conceptual choices, demeaned the scale of what is ultimately a grand work. Problematic was the use of a small set, flown in to indicate the dwelling of Jokanaan, that included a live-time video of the character's face upstage on a screen that was totally masked by the small unit set. This was the only instance of video used in the production, which begged the question: why use an element such as this only once—and poorly? Perhaps the most egregious conceptional choice was the reduction of the famous “Dance of Seven Veils” to an erotic sex scene that began with fondling by both Salome and Herod that resulted in a simulated sex scene “up against the wall” on the downstage-right false proscenium. As someone who has reviewed the works of both Frank Castorf and Barrie Kosky in Germany, simulated sex, nudity, and the like are commonplace there; however, the scale of this central thematic moment of the work was diminished, if not outright perverted, by this crude action that included the removal of Salome's panties as Herod dropped his trousers. The dance has been a focal part of the work for decades and this particular version just seemed cheapened and somewhat disgusting. Poorly staged, it seemed particularly inappropriate, given today's women's movements against sexual assault, such as “Me Too.” Finally, the delivery of the severed head of (apparently) decapitated Jokanaan was not well realized; the bloody, wrapped object arrived on a silver platter as requested but it was impossible for her to achieve her actions as stated in the text: “I have kissed thy mouth, there was a bitter taste on thy lips. Was it the taste of blood? Nay, it was the taste of love.” This led to the final moment, when (straying heavily from the script) Jokanaan walked on stage and whispered to Herod just before Herod delivered the work's final line “Kill that woman!” This directorial choice to overwrite the story and to imply that an innocent servant or other menial had been sacrificed to appease Salome undermined the magnitude of one of the most dramatic moments in the plot.Despite the desire of the production team to set the work in contemporary times Salome at Spoleto 2019 ultimately felt cheap, as the magnitude of the fantastic score and sensational story were reduced to a dirty scene in a back alley outside a disco. Given the fantastic cast and amazing resources of the newly renovated Gaillard Center, along with the tremendous access to wonderful musicians in Charleston, I found this to be one of the weaker conceptual approaches I have seen at Spoleto. Apparently, this was the general consensus of the Charleston theatre community as ticket sales were well below the norm. Considering the great history of the festival it's unfortunate when amazing talent and plentiful resources are wasted on the poor ideas generated by directors who aim to elevate their own views above serving the story and performance.

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