If this is how the Royal Opera House is starting 2018, then we are in for a vintage year.
Oscar Wilde’s original French play Salome, translated into German all in one Act, is just under 2 hours of intense brutality and unyielding musical brilliance, built on a theme of eroticism and murder. It was first performed in Dresden in 1905 and Gustav Mahler himself wanted to conduct the opera in Vienna, but in fact the censors refused consent and did not relent until 1918. It was initially banned in London until performed at Covent Garden under the baton of Thomas Beecham in 1910.
