SALOME

ENGLISH NATIONAL OPERA

 

PREMIERED SEPTEMBER 2018

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"Adena Jacobs’ staging of Strauss’s opera Salome is all about this mingling of gross viscera and crystalline beauty, raw sensuality and confrontational power. It also feels authentically, messily queer.....The dance of the seven veils is a masterpiece." ALICE SAVILLE - EXEUNT MAGAZINE

 

Strauss’s masterpiece is among the works that set the course of music in the last century. Based on Oscar Wilde’s lurid play, it is an intense exploration of the Salome story. Its sumptuous vocal and orchestral writing seethes and pulsates as Strauss conjures up the brutality of Herod’s corrupt court.

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Composer: Richard Strauss

Conductor: Martyn Brabbins

Director: Adena Jacobs

Set & costume design: Marg Horwell

Lighting design: Lucy Carter

Choreographer: Melanie Lane

Dramaturgue: Luc Joosten

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Cast: Salome (Allison Cooke), Jokanaan (David Soar), Herod (Michael Colvin), Herodias (Susan Bickley), Narraboth (Stuart Jackson), Page (Clare Presland), Nazarenes (Robert Winslade Anderson, Adam Sullivan), Soldiers (Ronald Nairne, Simon Shibambu), Cappadocian (Trevor Bowes), Jews (Daniel Norman, Christopher Turner, Amar Muchhala, Alun Rhys-Jenkins, Jonathan Lemalu), Slave (Ceferina Penny), Dancers (Kazmin Borrer, Nicole Neolove, Hannah Flynn, Corey Annand), Dancer in milk tank (Iona Kirk).

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Orchestra of the English National Opera

Sung in an English translation by Tom Hammond, with English surtitles.

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★★★★ "This is strong meat, in short, and sounds a warning to any society that cannot distinguish between kindness and hatred, ugliness and virtue. Strauss's own country, Germany, was to fail on this score twice within his lifetime. As other countries lose their moral compass too, this Salome feels well-timed." CLAUDIA PRITCHARD - CULTURE WHISPER

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"Strauss’s opera will always be lush and ear-fillingly beautiful – especially when it’s performed to this level, by an orchestra at the top of their game. Wilde’s story will always be problematic and strange. Here, Jacobs adds a third strong creative vision: a visual argument and discussion with these two male voices, and a set of images with a mythic power all of their own." ALICE SAVILLE - EXEUNT MAGAZINE

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"Cohesive and striking...a radical production" MEGAN VAUGHAN - WITNESS PERFORMANCE

 

"Allison Cook, playing the title role for the first time, was fierce and fearless...This new 'Salome' is a welcome, dangerously contaminated, shot in the arm." ADRIAN SPECS - SPECS

 

 

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