Composer: Richard Strauss
Libretto: Hedwig Lachmann (after Oscar Wilde)
Director: Mark Ravenhill
Mark Ravenhill has chosen to put on his production of Richard Strauss’ opera Salome in the East End Mecca of Boxing, York Hall. Its down-at-heels charisma is a vigorous counterpoint to Oscar Wilde’s florid fin de siècle versifying, projected in all its decadent glory on the surtitle screens. The German words to which the performers give voice are less fancy, the librettist Hedwig Lachmann making compromises to accommodate the Strauss score, but the material being presented is very curlicued indeed. The production not so much.
Salome appears to an admirer to be fluttering in on feet like white doves. What shows up on stage is a sullen teenager in a baggy Guns’n’Roses tee shirt, in the throes of a world-defying brattishness. She hates her mother, she detests her step-father, the whole panoply of excess and luxury they inhabit (allegedly, everything around her seems pretty down at heel) bores and disgusts her. Then she finds out they have a bona fide prophet locked up in the palace basement, and everything gets more interesting. She makes her admirer unlock the prophet. She attempts to seduce the prophet. She gets turned down flat by the prophet (John the Baptist, to be clear) and plans to get her own back with a vengeance.
When the parents turn up, it is evident that her step-father’s interest in her is overwhelmingly creepy, that her mother Herodias is tired of the fussy little man she has married, even if he is Herod Antipas, tetrarch of all Judaea, and is also extremely irritated by the stream of corrective advice she receives from John the Baptist. She would very much like it if he stopped his prophesying. Herod begs his step-daughter to give him one of her dances. Salome agrees to do so on condition that he gives her whatever she wants. Cue Salome’s celebrated dance and her subsequent grisly reward.
Ravenhill relishes the grubbiness of the setting he has created. Salome dances in a furry blue negligee with the allure of a bin-bag. The feast for Herod’s birthday features wine boxes and plastic cups. We are in a hall famous for boxing matches, not a palace famous for splendour. Playing the setting against the content makes the febrile sexuality more substantial, less a regular feature of a decadent age. This is further emphasised by Salome’s treatment of her prize. She said she would kiss John on his mouth, ‘red as a pomegranate cut with a silver knife’, and she certainly does that.
Freddie Tong brings a magnificent bass-baritone voice to his wild-eyed portrayal of Jochanaan, the renamed John the Baptist. He is a tremendous, threatening presence when he emerges from his pit and emanates disgust as he resists Salome’s attempts at seduction. Mae Heydorn owns the stage as she stalks around in silver stilettos, making Herodias a striking visual centre. She is glamorous, and her glamour on the plywood palace floor is startling, which is doubtless what Mark Ravenhill intended.
Robin Whitehouse is a fussy little Herod with a ratty ponytail, and Kirsty Taylor-Stokes is Salome. Their decadent interaction is the heart of the drama, and they act it very well. Because it’s an opera, every dramatic beat is turned into ten minutes of singing, which works well as Herod offers increasingly lavish inducements to make Salome perform, and Salome offers curt rejections. It works less well for manifesting the shock of her prize, as she sings to it for an age. Ravenhill manufactures a second climax with a lingering bloody kiss before blackout.
Regents Opera specialise in taking opera to non-traditional venues, thereby increasing access. Their dedication to finding settings that speak to the production is amply rewarded by York Hall. The thrill of hearing excellent singers at close quarters is a significant reward. Oscar Wilde’s Salome made squalid is a valid and interesting interpretation, and substituting a baby-blue faux fur garment for the fabled seven veils makes a powerful statement. Although it does raise a question – has Mark Ravenhill ever seen a boxing crowd attending a major fight? The East End en fête would never look so dowdy.
Runs until 23 April 2026
