BSO Music Director Designate Andris Nelsons leads a stellar cast in this special, one-night-only concert performance of Salome, Richard Strauss's 1905 leap into modernism. The libretto is a nearly exact German translation of Oscar Wilde's lurid amplification of the well-known Biblical story of Herodias' young daughter Salome, who dances for King Herod and in return demands the head of John the Baptist. The opera's highly innovative music matches the psychological ambiguity and intensity of the plot.You can also go there for the usual links to performer bios, program notes, and audio material.
I wasn't there on Thursday (having exchanged my ticket for one to the all-Beethoven concert on Tuesday, March 18), so I can't give you my impression. The Globe's reviewer was very pleased with it. Without the space restrictions of a print newspaper, the Boston Musical Intelligencer's reviewer gives more detail about the performance, and an interesting vignette about the cast and some grad students at the end of the review. He was also very pleased with the performance.
When "Tosca" was new, a critic (G.B. Shaw?) called it "a tawdry little shocker." I tend to feel the same way about "Salome," so I'm not sure I'll listen in. But if you're at all interested in hearing the favorably reviewed performance, tune in to Classical New England or pull them up online at 8:00 p.m., Boston Time. Their BSO page has links for material about this and other BSO concerts.
As I mentioned last week, their Monday, March 10, repeat will be of an all-Beethoven concert given at Tanglewood last summer. They haven't yet announced when they will air tonight's Symphony Hall all-Mozart program, but they are recording it so we should get to hear it sometime.
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