Gale Edwards will present a new and provocative production of Richard Strauss’ beautiful and outrageous Salome, starring Cheryl Barker. Gale Edwards directs this biblical tale of sex and death, with John Wegner as John the Baptist and Johannes Fritzsch conducting. Salome opens at the Sydney Opera House on 12 October 2012.

About the cast

This production marks the latest in a string of Strauss roles for Cheryl Barker. She has been showered with awards for her portrayal of Arabella, the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier and the Countess in Capriccio. Now she makes her Australian role debut in the emotionally, physically and dramatically challenging Salome.

"She's half woman, half child,” said Barker, in an interview with the London Telegraph’s Rupert Christiensen, “and you could say a vulnerable victim of her abusive and dysfunctional family. She's clever, she has imagination and she knows that John has something better to offer than the lunacy that surrounds her.

"Although it presents a tremendously long emotional journey to travel in 90 minutes, the part isn't actually impossibly difficult. Mostly it lies quite high, with excursions into low notes I have never sung before on stage. But Strauss knows so much about writing for the voice that he gives you the time you need to adjust."

Cheryl Barker played Salome for the first time in London in 2005. This is her first Australian performance in the role.

In the role of Jokanaan (John the Baptist) Opera Australia welcomes back Australian Heldenbaritone John Wegner. Based in D?sseldorf, where he is a member of Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Wegner is a regular visitor to Sydney. In 2010 he won huge praise for his interpretation of the evil Scarpia in Tosca and also sang Jack Rance in The Girl of the Golden West. He sang Jokanaan on the 2007 Chandos recording of Salome, conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras, and has also been seen in this role in Germany, Japan and the UK.

John Pickering is an Australian tenor whose career took him, at an early age, away from his country of birth. Pickering was a finalist in the 1972 Metropolitan Opera Award, which enabled him to study in New York. He is now based in Germany.

Herod’s wife, Herodias, is sung by Jacqueline Dark. Physics graduate and self-confessed ?berdork’, Jacqui Dark has appeared in many roles with Opera Australia including Donna Elvira in the 2011 production of Don Giovanni and Katisha in The Mikado.

Chief conductor of Queensland Symphony Orchestra Johannes Fritzsch returns to conduct Strauss’ magnificent score.

About the production

Gale Edwards is one of Australia’s most acclaimed directors. She was the first Australian to direct a mainstage Royal Shakespeare Company production, and the first to have a musical on Broadway and in London’s West End. She is known in particular for her grand theatrical vision, which encompasses large scale works such as Jesus Christ Superstar, Sweeney Todd and The Boy from Oz.

In 2011 she created the smash-hit production of La bohème for Opera Australia, with designer Brian Thomson, costume designer Julie Lynch and lighting designer John Rayment. In 2012 this same creative team takes on Salome.

“Salome inhabits a world of deep taboos, a world in which people eat and kill,” says Edwards. “Our interpretation will, hopefully, be both provocative and spectacular.”

About the work
Sex, death and religion; a libretto adapted from Oscar Wilde’s banned play of the same name; the Dance of the Seven Veils. No wonder Salome was a scandalous success from the word go.

“Nothing more satanic and artistic has been seen on the German opera stage,” wrote Austrian music critic Ernst Décsey with glee after its Graz première in 1906. Crowned heads of state, composers including Mahler, Puccini, Schoenberg and Zemlinsky and even a young Adolf Hitler are said to have made the journey to Graz to hear it performed.

Quite apart from moral censorship and nudity, one of the most shocking elements of the opera was Strauss’ music. It is by turns lushly romantic and discordant, and uses a massive orchestra, including 8 percussionists and offstage organ and celeste. Décsey described it, in a preview article, as a “tone colour world” full of “polyrhythms and polytonality” heralding “the breakup of the narrow old tonality”.

Within two years of its 1905 première Salome had been performed in over 50 opera houses and continues to be a well-established part of the operatic repertoire.

PERFORMANCE INFORMATION
Evenings at 7:30pm:
Oct 12, 16, 19, 23, 26, 29, 31
Matinee at 1pm: Nov 3
Sung in German with English surtitles

BOOKINGS
Tickets: From $105
Opera Australia Box Office phone: (02) 9318 8200
Or online: www.opera-australia.org.au
Opera Theatre, Sydney Opera House
Duration: approx one hour, 40 mins, no interval