A musical orgasm

Frederick M. Winship for United Press International:

The Metropolitan Opera may have the best show in town with its new contemporized “Salome,” a gory thriller with a gloriously sexy score. The production which opened Monday, the first of eight this season, milks the lurid Richard Strauss opera based on Oscar Wilde’s novel for all it’s worth. With the stupendous Eva Marton singing the title role, this is undoubtedly the Met’s best “Salome” since Ljuba Welitsch scorched the scenery at the old Met Opera House in 1949.

Marton only recently added the role of the depraved Judaean princess who lusts after John the Baptist’s head to her repertory. She is giving her first performances of the role here for West German director Nikolaus Lehnhoff, making his debut at the Met. Lehnhoff sees Salome in the light of the 20th century, rather than the time of Christ when Herod, Salome’s stepfather, ruled Judea. . . .

Marton’s dance of the seven veils may not be the essence of grace, but it has a certain Gypsy Rose Lee quality, since she begins by stripping off her elbow-length gloves and continues by removing overskirts until she gets down to a long satin nightgown that Welitsch, who stripped to her last diaphanous thread, would have abhorred. The Budapest-born dramatic soprano makes up for any terpsichorean lack with a sincerely felt characterization and the full benefit of the big, vital, splendidly flexible voice that has given her a virtual monopoly on one of opera’s other great princess roles, Turandot. Her realization of Strauss’ lurking melodic love-death theme in the final moments of the opera is as close to a musical orgasm as you get in opera.

Contributing to the effectiveness of this most sensational of music dramas is a fine cast headed by Richard Cassilly as the neurotic Herod, Helga Dernesch as a cooly elegant Herodias rather than the usual drunken nag, Mark Baker as Narraboth and last, but not least, Bernd Weikl of the clarion baritone voice as a towering Jochanaan. Conductor Marek Janowski gives a transcendent reading of Strauss’ supernal score.

Happy Presidents Day to US parterrians.