Musikdrama in one act
Libretto by Richard Strauss
based on Hedwig Lachmann’s translation into German of Oscar Wilde’s
Salomé /p>
Premiere: 9 December 1905
Königliches Opernhaus, Dresden
Oscar Wilde wrote the biblical drama Salome in French while living in Torquay, inspired by Gustave Moreau's painting of the Hebrew princess. The work, in highly poetic prose, was not written for the renowned French actress Sarah Bernhardt, although she certainly asked to perform it. Wilde chose French for personal and strategic reasons, as it was not possible to stage biblical subjects in Victorian Britain. Richard Strauss became acquainted with the drama at its first performances in Germany, in a translation by Hedwig Lachmann, a playwright and the first writer of the libretto, which Strauss then reduced to a third of its original length. The composer wanted to sustain the philosophical nihilism, close to Nietzsche, which Wilde embellished with his decadent preciousness. Salome is a Wagnerian New Testament, the purification of Wagner's Parsifal. But despite Strauss's desire to go beyond the Wagnerian path, the remnants of its structures remained in the architecture of this neurotic symphonic poem, which ends with a bloody Liebestod sung by the eponymous character to the beloved and holy head of the Baptist.
