Salomé

The story of Salome appears in the bible in

The name "Salome" in English is much like the word salami, but with the second "a" read as "oh" The stress is on the second syllable. So it sounds something like sa lów me

In German, the name Salome is read Zahlome, with the stress on the first syllable.

The Oscar Wilde play, Salomé, written in French, has an accent on the final "é" and the name is usually pronounced with the French pronunciation, which is like the German except that the first sound is "s" rather than "z".

So we have the French Salome (sáhlomay - accent on the first syllable)

German: Záhlomay

English: Sa lów me

The composer of the opera is Richard Strauss who also wrote Also Sprach Zarathustra, the music which opens the Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Traditionally author's names are read (pronounced) as they themselves would have pronounced them (as are works titled in a foreign language). Rivhard is read as "reheart" (the "ee" as in "see", the "h' and in "hue") and Strauss is read "shtraus" (in German "s" at the start of a word is read "z" before vowels and "sh" before consonants). So Richard Strauss becomes "reehart shtrauss".

Although one of the most famous women in The Bible, her name does not appear in any of the texts. There is a Salome who is the wife of Zebedee and the mother of the apostles James and John.

Kinship

Herod is a kind of family name, so there are many Herods. Herod the Great, and the one who is responsible for the "Slaughter of the Innocents' - the kllling of all the small children in order to get rid of the prophisized coming of Christ. Herod the Great has a number of sons by a variety of wives: Antipas, Alexander, Aristobuus, and Philip (all of whom would have been called Herod also). Antipas is the one involved in the Salome story.

There is a great deal of kinship Antipas half brother Aristobus is the father of Herodias. Herodias marries another of Antipas' brothers, the daughter of Miriamne. This Herod and Herodias have a daughter named Salome. Herodias has in fact married her uncle and winds up married to Antipas - another uncle after Antipas arrest and perhaps kills her husband! Yikes! No wonder John the Baptist was upset!

See the Herod family tree

The Biblical Story

The story of Salome appears in a few brief verses in the Bible in which she is simply referred to as the "daughter of Herodias". Salome dances for Herod's birthday and asks for the head of John as a reward, This is apparently done at her mother's instigation and Salome gives the head to her mother

It seems clear that Herod enjoyed talking to John and was uspest at having to kill him

The Films

There are a number of versions of the story filmed, two are rather famous. One was made by the actress Nazimoa in 1923; the other stars Rita Hayworth and was made in 1953. Two versions of the opera have also been released on DVD, one released in 1997 with Catherine Malfitano as Salome, the other with Maria Ewing.

There are also scenes of Salome in several of the films we have seen so far - Geratest Story Ever Told and The Gospel According to St. Matthew so its role in the New Testament narrative should be at least vaguely familiar to you.

Oscar Wilde's Play

Oscar Wilde is considerd by many one of the greatest writers of the Victorian period. He wrote one novel - The Picture of Dorian Gray, but several plays including A Woman of No Importance, The Importance of Being Ernest, Lady Windemere's Fan and most importantly for our purposes Salome.

Wilde seems to have discoveed something of homosexual nature early in his life and married in the hopes of freeing himself from it. He married and had two children. He was also engaged in a long homosexual relationship which ultimately resulted in his being jailed in 1895 for 2 years at hard labor. AFter his release he wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol, a poem about his incarceration. He died in 1900 without producing any strong works other than the poem.

Oscar Wilde clearly enlarges the story turning it into a jolting one act drama. It is set on a terrace outisde of Herod's palace. Herod is the Tetrach of Jusea. There is a well, or cistern visible and it is in this that John the Baptist is beig held prisoner. Soldiers guard the place. Herod is giving a party with many many people from different parts of the kingdom Salome dances for Herod on his borthday and as a reward she asks for the head of John the Bapitist, which she gets and gives to her mother gets the head of John the Baptist as a reward. The dance is generally held to be the Dance of the Seven Veils, a kind of early strip tease dance. the play is rooted in some very short verses in the Bible, the story has become enormously famous in that . Salome is supposed to be about 15 years old - that is about the time of a young woman discovering her own sexuality. Some writers have felt that Salome is meant to represent Wilde himself.

If nothing else the play is about obsession and unrequited love. A young Page in the court dotes on Narraboth one of the soldiers who is obsessed with Salome as is Herod. Salome returns neither of their advances, but is obsessed with John the Baptist who does not return her affections, but loves only God.

There is a great deal of imagery in the text - especially about the moon which each character comments on when entering the scene. Herod is preoccupied with omens which his more practical wife sees little other than what is there. There are parallels between the moon imagery and Salome.

Originally written in French for Sarah Bernhardt, a famous actress. He said the words must fall like pearls on a plate of silver.

Some of the Wilde text is quoted in the film King of Kings.

Why would Wilde have picked this story?

Film Versions

There are several film versions that deal with the character of Salome. There is a silent film version with Nazimova, several versions of the Strauss opera (all of whcih use the Oscar Wilde text) and a sound version with Rita Hayworth.. The character of Salome also occurs in some of the other films which include the death of John the Baptist within a larger text as occurs, for example in The Greatest Story Ever Told.

Minor character made leading character; How do you build the story? Need to create new characters: Often love interest needed and characters who need to be converted and who converts. It is also interesting to note that Salome is the film script that Norma Desmond is writing in Sunset Blvd. and you can hear the citation of the Strauss opera as Norma descends the stairs in one of the climactic moments in the film The long tremolo which destabilizes the final moments of the opera as Salome's mind goes, are duplicated in Steiner score for Sunset Blvd.

AFTER THE FILMS

Nazimova Version

Nazimova was the aunt of Val Lewton (Cat People) and other famous horror films. Born in Russia, she came to the US later in life than her nephew. She made a series of silent films many of which were not well recieved by made Camille which received good notices. She and Valentino wanted to got o Europe where they felt actors were respeced.

Although she did not go, she decided to produce some "art films" which include this version of Salome

Nazimova was the aunt of the famous producer director Val Lewton. She was 40 years old when she made the film. The film was remarkably expensive and a dismal failure in many ways It has been rumored that the entire cast of the production was gay, but this seems clearly not to have been the case.

The Nazimova version, although silent, uses inter-title cards from the Wilde play. The famous Beardsley drawings for the publication of the text are used as the basis for the sets and costumes of the Nazimova version.

Rita Hayworth Version

The Rita Hayworth version, written by Jesse Lasky is a masterpiece of confusion in which Salome dances to save John the Baptist making one wonder whether anyone bothered to read the book!

Longinus converts from John the Baptist (what religion is John the Bapstist? Does he seem like a Christian? Is he Jewish? What does this say about de-ethnicizing the Jews in New Testament films?) but the usual approach is to have a woman who converts a man.

In this film there is a reversal in which a woman is converted by man. In most of the biblical epics (especially those of our "classs ii" variety where Christ appears in a story not found in The Bible, women generally convert men, thus keeping with the feminizing principles usually evident in the religion.

This film is often noted for its use of color and design. What can you say about that?

Operatic Versions

Filming Opera

Opera has a tendency to go "relevant" in its staging and frequently the entire mise en scene gets rather peculiar in an attempt to make it "relevant". So, like Shakespeare, various operas have not only been performed with, but also filmed with a variety of singers in a variety of productions.

The performances of opera that are released are often nothing more than stage performances that have been filmed, rather than versions which are taken out of the theater and opened up into a film, The problems of filming performances pieces written for the stage is often complicated by the problems of keeping the film not to feel "stagey". Films like Deathtrap, The Man Who Came to Dinner feel very much like the film makers have simply filmed a staged version. Other films like Robert Wise's brilliant West Side Story break completely clear of the feeling of being "on stage".

Opera is often unlike other musical films, sung throughout (durchcomponiert or "through composed"). Unlike many musicals where people break into song, which raises serious questions about whether other characters are supposed regard them as singing or speaking since there is a contrast between the two in the films themselves, in opera, the basically durchcompaniert aspect of most operas does not raise this question since passages which are sung do NOT contrast with those that do not,

Finally there is the question of how to film the singers. Operatic orchestras are frequently quite large and the effort it takes (un-miked) to be heard over some of the amount of sound the orchestra is producing is enormous, Frequently it causes blood vessels on the face and neck to stand out and distortion of the face in general. One option is to record the sound track and then have the singers lip synch their own voices without the effort to avoid the distortion. Some others feel that filming the actual singing with its concomitant facial distortions is a part of the singing process and should look like people are really singing.

In directing both staged and filmed versions of opera, the directors must take a back seat to the composer, who allots only a certain amount of time before the singers have to sing the next lines. Hence directors may not have time to move performers around (no time or too much time) Consider in this film the amount of time that the music plays when John the Baptist comes out of and returns to the cistern. There is no way to alter that and still keep the opera intact,

Richard Strauss'Salomé

The Strauss Opera

The Richard Strauss opera premiered in 1905 in Dresden. It was Strauss' third opera (Gutrun and Feuersnot, two operas rarely performed any more, preeded it).

Richard Strauss (1864-1949) wrote Salomé from 1904-505 when Strauss was 41 years old, It was considered something of a "shocker", in part because of the depravity of the text as a vehicle for an opera, and ins infamous final scene. It was, and remains, an extremely difficult piece to sing requiring enormous "staying power" on the part of the lead singer.

At its premiere one critic wrote "it mixes the smell of perfume and decay". Straiss resolved to write a comedy after that, but instead wrote Elektra, and opera based on the Hugo von Hoffmansthal's adaptation of the Sophocles play of the same name. The same critic wrote of that opera "It is a lot like Salome only the perfume is gone and the decay has become decomposition".

When the opera was performed for the first time in Boston it was considered such a scandal that it was banned for over 30 years, citing a law which prohibited the portraying of biblical characters on stage,

As operas go, it is short (about 90 minutes) intense, difficult, frequently discordant and powerful. The famous Dance of the Seven Veils a kind of early strip tease is one of the more famous moments in the opera and like the Bacchanal from Samson and Delilah often performed by iteslef. Srauss himself seems to have thought the opera might not survive (it has) but that the dance music might remain as a concern piece. As a result it has its own set of rehearsal numbers (letters, rather than numbers)

The Nazimova version and the Strauss version both use a text by Oscar Wilde

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