Some out-of-this-world sounds from a singer who proves mistress of a surprising role

How good it is to see in the moon.
It is like a silver flower, cool and chaste.
Yes, like the beauty of a virgin,
who has remained pure.

How sweet is the air here.
Here I can breathe.

by Ken

Yes, yes, something happens at the end of the first clip, something I couldn't edit out, which is actually kind of the point. In Richard Strauss's Salome things just kind of happen, one thing after another, and one of the miracles of Strauss's breakthrough opera -- here we might bear in mind that his operatic breakthrough didn't come till he was 40 -- is that he had music, utterly extraordinary music, for all those things that happen.

As many of you will know, the two audio clips we've already heard are reversed -- for visual effect, the visual effect being the illustration of the full moon, which clearly favors our moon-clip. In the opera, though, the "How sweet is the air" clip comes first; it's almost the first thing we hear from Salome after she makes her entrance -- fleeing from the banquet inside to the terrace of the palace of the Tetrarch Herod, her stepfather (and also her uncle, which is even worse than it sounds, but that's another sordid story for another time). We'll be hearing these musical bits in context shortly, with all participants properly identified.


OH YES, THE SINGER, OF COURSE, IS . . .

Montserrat Caballé, who else? Montserrat Caballé, whom we've been remembering for a number of weeks now.

THE CABALLÉ REMEMBRANCE SERIES SO FAR

Montserrat Caballé (1933-2018) (11/14/2018)
Yes, we have more Caballé, but mostly as a spur to reflecting on my (and others' too?) relationship to music (and other arts too?) (10/21/2018)
More Caballé: as Lauretta, Luisa, Violetta, Lucia, and Elisabeth (10/28/2018)
Queen Elisabeth stands up to King Philip, Caballé-style (11/4/2018)
In a nutshell: It's tough to conjure up Caballé in the most electric performance I heard her give (11/11/2018 [1])
I swear, Caballé and Domingo were electrifying that night, but I will still need to scrounge to give you an idea of what I remember (11/11/2016 [2])
Some out-of-this-world sounds from a singer who proves mistress of a surprising role (11/18/2018)

From the outset of this series I knew there were three operatic roles in which I wanted to remember Caballé, and all three involved, for me, an element of surprise.

One was a role I had no reason to think she couldn't sing well but just didn't expect her -- and Plácido Domingo too -- to do as thrillingly as they did that night at the Met. And as I tried to explain last week, although I've got a stack of Caballé (and Domingo) performances of Verdi's Masked Ball, I'm still going to have to sift through the pile to see if I can find recorded indications of what I remember hearing that night.

The other two roles I know Caballé in only from records. We covered one of them in the first installment in this series (there'll be a full list of the series farther along in this post): Fiordiligi in Mozart's Così fan tutte. This week we're hearing some bits of the other role I would never have thought of for Caballé: Salome. (For the record, while I don't know whether she actually sang Fiordiligi, I know she did sing Salome, both earlier and later in her career.)


LET'S HEAR OUR CLIPS IN CONTEXT, AS THE PRINCESS
SALOME MAKES HER ENTRANCE, FLEEING THE BANQUET

Let's listen to both our clips in context, as the princess Salome flees the banquet hall and the wearying presence of her mother, Herodias; her stepfather, the Tetrarch Herod (who happens also to be her uncle, but that's a sordid story for another time); and pretty much the whole guest list.
This excerpt begins with the handsome young Syrian captain Narraboth (his handsomeness will shortly be attested to by no less than the Tetrarch Herod) making no effort to control his mounting frenzy of infatuation, despite increasingly urgent urgings of restraint from the Page of Herodias (who himself seems seriously stuck on the handsome captain) is unable to restrain,

R. STRAUSS: Salome, Op. 54: Salome's entrance

Opening-of-the-opera stage direction: A large terrace in the palace of the Tetrarch HEROD, which abuts the banquet hall, where the Tetrarch is giving a banquet. Several soldiers are leaning against the balustrade. At right, a massive stairway. At left at the rear, an old cistern with an enclosure of green bronze. The moon shines brightly.

NARRABOTH: The princess is getting up!
She is leaving the table.
She is very agitated.
She is coming this way.
THE PAGE: I beg you, don't look at her!
NARRABOTH: She is like a lost dove.
[SALOME enters, agitated.]
SALOME: I will not stay. I cannot stay.
Why does the Tetrarch look at me so incessantly
with his mole's eyes under his shaking eyelids?
It is strange that the husband of my mother looks at me so.
How sweet is the air here.
Here I can breathe.
In there sit Jews from Jerusalem who tear
one another to pieces over their foolish rituals.
Silent, subtle Egyptians and brutal, barbarian Romans
with their uncouth speech. O how I hate these Romans.
THE PAGE [to NARRABOTH]: Horrible things will happen.
Why are you looking at her that way?
SALOME: How good it is to see in the moon.
It is like a silver flower, cool and chaste.
Yes, like the beauty of a virgin,
who has remained pure.
VOICE OF JOCHANAAN [from the cistern]:
See, the Lord has come.
The Son of Man is near.

James King (t), Narraboth; Julia Hamari (ms), Page of Herodias; Montserrat Caballé (s), Salome; Sherrill Milnes (b), Jochanaan; London Symphony Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA, recorded June 1968

I can point to a fair number of Salomes who have given me great satisfaction, and we'll be hearing a number of them in a future post. (A lot of the audio files are already made. I just couldn't get where we would have needed to get to present them in this post.) The reason I isolated those two clips at the tip of this post is that they offer us qualities I haven't heard to this degree from any other Salome: the warmth and beauty and range of vocal colors and weights, along with the high degree of precise articulation Caballé was capable of, and all this in a voice of that considerable size, which the heavy weight of Strauss's orchestral framework takes for granted. (Strauss knew his voices. A high-quality big voice under proper control can make a haunting effect, in fact all sorts of haunting effects, when scaled down -- it just isn't the same sound as a smaller voice the same dynamic level. Some of the most luscious parts of Birgit Nilsson's Salome came in the soft sections.

Why is it so important to me that Salome be sung with the maximum vocal beauty? Because Strauss seems to me to have worked very hard to show us, in sound, the human potential in these characters, starting with the title one. She doesn't just have her physical beauty; she has special personal qualities that could make her a special person -- if she weren't, as her stepfather puts it, a monster. So of course it's important that any Salome be able to give us the petulance, the absolute sense of entitlement, and the total lack of moral control. But aren't those the easy parts? What's harder to find is the tragic waste of human potential she embodies.


CABALLÉ WAS LUCKIER IN HER SALOME 
RECORDING TEAM THAN IN THE COSÌ ONE

Every time I return to the Davis-Philips Così, I expect to find that I've somehow tricked myself about the quality of Caballé's Fiordiligi, and every time I'm almost surprised to find that I don't think so -- it sounds as grand as I remembered. However, every time I'm reminded of the weakness of the surrounding players, starting (and ending, I'm afraid) with the conductor.

Just as regularly when I return to the Leinsdorf-RCA Salome, I'm almost surprised and definitely delighted that not just Caballé but the whole team is as good as I remembered, and maybe even better. I've never heard any conductor as sensitive and alive to the complexities, to the beauties and urgencies and horrors of the score, as Erich Leinsdorf, who had the LSO playing the score like chamber music. And the casting was accomplished with enormous care. One special point of pleasure for me is the casting of James King as Narraboth: My goodness, a voice of that size and quality, handled with real understanding, gives us something like an optimal view of the poor fellow's compulsive passion.

This applies as well to the small roles, of which there aren't any small enough not to matter. Like a number of other great opera composers, Strauss didn't have much of a knack for writing music that doesn't matter so much. By way of illustration of what Leinsdorf and his cast accomplished in their Salome recording, I though we'd listen to the opening of the opera -- up to the point where we've already heard, with a bit of overlap so you can hear how the parts fit together. Note how well Julia Hamari does with the wonderful little role of Herodias's Page, and note in particular the First Soldier of Neil Howett, who gets, for one thing, that beautiful line Strauss created, referring to the prophet Jochanaan: "Er ist ein heil'ger Mann" ("He is a holy man").

Salome: Opening of the opera, up to Salome's entrance

A large terrace in the palace of the Tetrarch HEROD, which abuts the banquet hall, where the Tetrarch is giving a banquet. Several soldiers are leaning against the balustrade. At right, a massive stairway. At left at the rear, an old cistern with an enclosure of green bronze. The moon shines brightly.

NARRABOTH: How beautiful is the princess Salome tonight!
THE PAGE OF HERODIAS: See the disc of the moon, how it looks strange.
Like a woman who is rising from the grave.
NARRABOTH: She is very strange.
Like a little princess whose feet are white doves.
One could imagine she's dancing.
THE PAGE: Like a woman who is dead. She glides slowly in there.
[Noise in the banquet hall.]
FIRST SOLDIER: What kind of an uproar!
What are those that like wild animals are howling there?
SECOND SOLDIER: The Jews. They're always that way.
They're arguing about their religion.
FIRST SOLDIER: I find it laughable
to argue about such things.
NARRABOTH: How beautiful is the princess Salome this evening!
THE PAGE: You're always looking at her.
You look at her too much.
It is dangerous to look at people in this manner.
Horrible things may happen.
NARRABOTH: She is very beautiful this evening.
FIRST SOLDIER: The Tetrarch has a dark look.
SECOND SOLDIER: Yes, he has a dark look.
FIRST SOLDIER: At whom is he looking?
SECOND SOLDIER: I don't know.
NARRABOTH: How pale the princess is!
Never have I seen her so pale.
She is like the shadow of a white rose
in a silver mirror.
THE PAGE: You must not look at her.
You look at her too much.
Horrible things can happen.
VOICE OF JOCHANAAN: After me one will come
who is stronger than I.
I am not worthy to unloose the straps on his shoes.
When he comes, there will be rejoicing
in all the deserted places.
When he comes, the eyes
of the blind will see the day.
When he comes, the ears
of the dead will be opened.
SECOND SOLDIER: Make him be quiet!
FIRST SOLDIER: He is a holy man.
SECOND SOLDIER: He always says laughable things.
FIRST SOLDIER: He is very gentle.
Every day when I give him to eat, he thanks me.
A CAPPADOCIAN: Who is he?
FIRST SOLDIER: A prophet.
A CAPPADOCIAN: What is his name?
FIRST SOLDIER: Jochanaan.
A CAPPADOCIAN: Where does he come from?
FIRST SOLDIER: From the desert.
A swarm of youths was always there around him.
A CAPPADOCIAN: About what does he speak?
FIRST SOLDIER: It's impossible
to understand what he says.
A CAPPADOCIAN: Can one see him?
FIRST SOLDIER: No, the Tetrarch has forbidden it.
NARRABOTH: The princess is getting up!
She is leaving the table.
She is very agitated.
She is coming this way.
THE PAGE: I beg you, don't look at her!
NARRABOTH: She is like a lost dove.
[SALOME enters, excited.]

James King (t), Narraboth; Julia Hamari (ms), Page of Herodias; Neil Howlett (b), First Soldier; David Kelly (bs); Sherrill Milnes (b), Jochanaan; London Symphony Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA, recorded June 1968


A SALOME BONUS

I realize we haven't had a whole lot of music today, even though I prepared hours and hours of audio clips. Most of that trove is on reserve for follow-up posts, but I thought I'd share this much of the bounty. What I wanted to listen for this time is that sense I was talking about of innocent beauty lying beneath the craziness and degeneracy. I haven't listened carefully to these clips yet, but I did kind of enjoy Karl Böhm's "Dance." The Böhm Salomes and Elektras I heard, both live and on records, veered toward the scrappy, slambangy side; I want to check out the whole performance, but this "Dance" had more grace and elegance than I was expecting.

R. STRAUSS: Salome, Op. 54: Dance of the Seven Veils


Orchestre National de France, Leonard Bernstein, cond. DG, recorded May 7, 1977

Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Karl Böhm, cond. RCA, from a live VSO Salome, Dec. 22, 1972

Staatskapelle Dresden, Rudolf Kempe, cond. EMI, recorded September 1975

London Symphony Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA, recorded June 1968

Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Fritz Reiner, cond. RCA, recorded Mar. 6, 1954


STILL TO COME

We have a fair amount of Salome work to do. Inevitably we're going to wind up at the final scene, and I've already got audio clips prepared for at least a dozen versions in various configurations -- including all five recorded Ljuba Weltisch performances that I'm aware of!

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