Tuesday, July 12, 2022

Casting Salome

Zachary Woolfe of the Times reported on the Aix-en-Provence Festival the other day, and said this; boldface by me:

The most eyebrow-raising casting at Aix this year was the soprano Elsa Dreisig as Salome, a role usually taken by those who also sing Wagnerian heroines. Dreisig, just into her 30s, is better known for far lighter roles like Mozart’s Pamina and Zerlina.

Well, I'm not so sure about that, and "Wagnerian heroines" also includes lyric roles such as Elsa. Here's a list of notable historic and recent or current Salomes, some of whom I grabbed from the San Francisco Opera's archive:

  • Maria Jeritza
  • Lily Djanel
  • Brenda Lewis
  • Ljuba Welitsch 
  • Maria Cebotari
  • Emmy Destinn
  • Astrid Varnay
  • Birgitte Nilsson
  • Leonie Rysanek
  • Inge Borkh
  • Anja Silja
  • Josephine Barstow
  • Gwyneth Jones
  • Montserrat Caballe
  • Hildegard Behrens
  • Inga Nielsen
  • Karita Mattila
  • Asmik Gregorian
  • Marlis Petersen
  • Patricia Racette
  • Teresa Stratas (video and recording studio only)
  • Maria Ewing
That's...quite a range of voices.

2 comments:

Paul McKaskle said...

The video with Teresa Stratas is spectacular. I would have loved seeing her perform it live. The only really disappointing Salome I've seen was Nancy Shade at Santa Fe - underpowered. (Martin Bernheimer was especially caustic saying something like what if they gave a Salome and she never came.) But Shade did a spectacular job after receiving Jokannan's head, rubbing it and its blood all over her body. No wonder Herod ordered the guards to crush her, she was REALLY depraved.

Lisa Hirsch said...

Salome as she should be!