New York penthouse decadence for a shattering new Salome in Geneva

“Grab ’em by the pussy!” When Kornél Mundruczó translates the action of Salome to a penthouse bar modelled on the Boom Boom Room with panoramic views across New York, we know exactly what world we’re in. Guests snort cocaine, bouncers in dark glasses with baseball bats manhandle an anti-capitalist protester. A giant gold-sequinned banana is raised priapically over the dancefloor, where Salome writhes and gyrates, before Herodes carries her into the lift and rapes her. The Jews – and Nazarenes – wear MAGA baseball caps. Herodes doesn’t need an orange tan for us to know who he is and what he represents.

Under Aviel Cahn, the Grand Théâtre de Genève is certainly not risk-averse, sometimes courting controversy. Here, the risks pay off powerfully. Before a note is played, we hear the sounds of rioting in the streets, jeers and sirens, a world away from the decadent lifestyles being played out 18 floors up. The hoodie-wearing Jochanaan, heavily bearded and with greasy hair, is being held captive in the lift. Herodias makes out with the male guests, the preening Herodes puffs on a cigar.

Salome is already a lost soul, seeking escape in the headphones clamped to her head, evading the wandering hands of her stepfather. After the besotted Narraboth slits his wrists, Salome comforts the distraught page by applying red lipstick onto her before scrawling “Stop it!” onto the mirror. To steel herself for the Dance of the Seven Veils, she drugs up on coke and booze, the dance taking on a psychedelic quality.

And when Salome demands the head of Jochanaan? Herodias daubs his hair in shaving foam as Salome plays the barber. The penthouse parts and the clean-shaven prophet of doom wanders off into the darkness, replaced – in Mundruczó’s pièce de résistance – by a giant severed head out of which seven naked Salome clones crawl: through his mouth, a nostril, an eye, an ear. When Salome announces she has kissed his mouth, she is wedged snugly between his lips.

Mundruczó’s message is unequivocal. As the horrified Herodes demands her death, Salome – donning a white hoodie – offers a gesture of defiance, along with her seven clones who have all scrawled the word “STOP” over their bodies.

The Hungarian director had committed support from his cast, led by Olesya Golovneva in a shattering role debut as Salome. She pushed her essentially lyric soprano to the limits, occasionally uncomfortably with wiry top notes, but an ability to float phrases softly. She was truly invested in the production, her acting outstanding, particularly in the giggling hallucinogenic aftermath of the Seven Veils, queasily lit by Felice Ross.

Gábor Bretz sang with tremendous power and conviction as Jochanaan, even better than in Romeo Castellucci’s knockout 2018 Salzburg staging. His bass-baritone has never sounded so dark, his cursing of Salome hurled out vehemently. John Daszak is no stranger to the role of Herodes – this is the eighth different production where Bachtrack has reviewed him. With his clarion tenor and expressive delivery of the text, he played up to the oligarch’s vanity, almost cartoonish were he not so repulsive.

Tanja Ariane Baumgartner’s Herodias was well sung, possibly too tastefully in a role where taste goes out the window, but she was a fine foil for Daszak. Matthew Newlin’s stylishly sung Narraboth was a highlight, as was Ena Pongrac’s supple mezzo as Herodias’ page.

Finnish conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste isn’t an opera pit regular, but he paced this performance grippingly, turning the screw of Strauss’ psychodrama. He drew thrilling playing from the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, from the first slithering clarinet scale to satin strings to the crushing brass that snuffs out the opera.

Mark’s press trip was funded by the Grand Théâtre de Genève