Hot. Sweaty. Filthy. And that was just the Northern Line to get to the Barbican for this London Symphony Orchestra season finale. Sir Antonio Pappano’s first season as Chief Conductor concluded with a sensational performance of Salome – an opera he never conducted during his Covent Garden tenure – that positively reeked of squalor and sultriness.
Strauss himself described Salome as “a scherzo with a fatal conclusion” but in a concert performance such as this, with no pit to restrain the orchestra, it can feel like his greatest tone poem.
Pappano urged his players to get down and dirty: pungent horns whooped as Jochanaan was hauled from his cistern; Olivier Stankiewicz’s oboe motif left a musty trace; the violins wafted sickly portamentos in the Dance of the Seven Veils and in their queasy swooning when Salome describes the bitter taste of the beheaded Baptist’s lips. This was an orchestral performance wreathed in the perfume of decadence and decay.
It was Romeo Castellucci’s icy Salzburg Festival Salome that catapulted Asmik Grigorian to operatic stardom in 2018. The Lithuanian soprano has returned to it in concert and in Dmitri Tcherniakov’s bloodless Hamburg staging (2023). It remains one of her trademark roles.
Even locked behind a music stand, like a caged panther in a sleek black gown, Grigorian’s Salome bristled with dramatic energy, from the sullen, sarcastic teen, arms folded at stepfather Herodes’ unwanted attention, to ecstatic fulfilment as Jochanaan’s severed head was (musically) served up to her.
Grigorian’s soprano – a heady mix of steel and silver – rippled with tension. She has all the requisite vocal nuances, from girlish tone when teasing Narraboth to hollow Sprechgsang through to sepulchral depth on the word “Gruft” (tomb). Her requests for Jochanaan’s head ranged from sugary sweet to playful to a harsh rasp, deliberately sliding off-note. At her most powerful, she could penetrate the LSO at full tilt, riding Strauss’ erotic climax.