If your stepfather was lusting after you and asked you to give him a lap dance, in exchange for which you could have anything in the world, what would you ask for? A mercedes coup, a big fat blingy ring, for him to divorce from your mother? If you are Salome in Richard Strauss' opera by the same name, you ask for his enslaved prophet's (John the Baptist) head on a silver platter. No joke.
The Met did their production of Salome this past weekend I watched it at a movie theater in NH with my mom. My favorite part was, hands down, when the backstage commentator asked the lead soprano, Karita Mattila, if she had any words for the audience as she walked up to the stage. Her reply? "What I always say at this time. Let's kick some ass." Indeed, there was ass kicking done in many ways.
Salome is far from my favorite opera. Not many hummable tunes, love stories with happy endings or pretty sets to oogle. It really does end with Salome getting the head on a platter. In this production, Salome, procures said head from a frightening looking assassin who descended into the cell below ground to slay the prophet. She then has to sing and lug the head around stage, roll around on the ground with it, make out with it and then show us her blood covered mouth. (She also did the über sexual dance of the seven veils which ended with her topless on stage, but the Met edited that out. Funny, we can see a severed head, but not a pair of boobs. Given my earlier encounter with a total stranger's boobs, I was okay going without.)
The things artists have to do for their craft! As I watched the severed head scene unfold, I wondered how I would approach such a thing on stage. Not only is the story disturbing to begin with, but as an actress, I'm going to have to pretend that a wax head is real and find a way to burst some faux blood pack that the prop guys have attached so it smears on my face and I can finish the opera looking like I just stuck my tongue in the mouth of a severed head. Rrrriiiight.
I can pretty much guarantee my reaction to being asked to sing while lovingly holding a pretend severed head against my bosom would be to laugh and ruin just about every rehearsal getting ready for the show. I give Mattila credit for being quite into the whole thing and carrying it off.
The event does add to the crazy fall of odd artistic productions. I can hardly wait to see what I'll go to next....
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