From
Helmut Mauro
Why was the new production of Richard Strauss’ opera “Salome” so successful at the Vienna State Opera? Maybe because director Cyril Teste does not think purely psychologically, but theatrically. Of course he explores the subcutaneous sensitivities of the protagonists, but he doesn’t abstract them any further on stage, instead he leads them back into concrete pictorial language. We see a completely broken family. Herodias (Michaela Schuster), the adulterous mother and former wife of Herod’s brother, incites the daughter Salome (strong-voiced and enthusiastic to play, all-round convincing: Malin Byström) against Herod’s stepfather (Gerhard Siegel). He, in turn, loves his daughter maybe a little too much, as he says himself.