Volume 23, Number 4 · March 18, 1976
A 'Beautiful Coloured, Musical Thing'
By Robert Craft
In all likelihood Oscar Wilde would not have chosen these same words [1] to describe his Salomé as transformed by Richard Strauss. Yet in spite of substantial cuts the opera follows the play and its deviations from the Bible: Salomé acts on her own behalf, rather than on her mother's, and is put to death at the end. And while the play is seldom given today, the popularity of the opera, attested to by an epidemic of new European productions, is greater than ever. In New York, too, Salomé is in the repertories of both houses, the Metropolitan and the Rudel,[2] though the former is not offering it this season, perhaps because the roster already includes three Strauss operas and a fourth would acknowledge him, at least in numbers of works performed, as the peer of Wagner and Verdi. But then, Strauss is the only other composer whose dramatic pieces, in quantity, currently hold a place on the world's stages.
Feature, 3556 words
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