Performer: Wolfgang Schmidt

The plight of the introvert, stigmatised by society despite the many benefits of their contemplative natures and inner strength, is an important part of the contemporary Zeitgeist, but it is in fact nothing new.

When Richard Strauss first wrote Salome, he was unable to get it performed in his home city of Vienna, so shocking was the material with its heavy eroticism and necrophiliac ending (the première was in Dresden). A century on, times are more permissive, and Salome features in the seasons both of Vienna's Volksoper and of the Staatsoper, where we saw it last night.