Salomé. The director’s view.

Set design for Salomé by Tiziano Santi

There is a mysterious connection between Salomé and the moon. In the opera we will meet a Page who I consider to be a kind of Greek Chorus; always looking at the moon and telling the audience about the approach of impending tragedy. The purity and chastity of the silver moon is opposed to the opulence and lust of the golden human world, a world where Salomé herself is growing like a tree being slowly poisoned by the diseased world that surrounds it.

Gold, avarice, power and riches surround the young Salomé; only beauty can catch her attention, but this beauty is very far from the world she knows. This is a beauty that comes from the hope of eternal life and it is immune from temptation and sin.  And speaking about sin, are not the seven deadly sins the mechanism that moves the world that Salomé inhabits?  The wrath of the young Syrian soldier Narraboth, who will kill himself overwhelmed by his own passion; the lust and envy of her incestuous mother Hérodias; the greed and sloth of the community that is not capable of having an individual identity, and pays tribute to Caesar only to satisfy the pride of their king Hérode, who in himself sums up all these sins, fed by his undisguised weakness.

In my representation of this beautiful opera, the set is a kind of golden cage, created by seven golden portals that create a closing and fake perspective towards the cave where 
Iokanaan is imprisoned. Salomé will always be surrounded by seven silent kings with precious crowns. They will weigh on the young girl's soul, they will look after her steps, they will tempt her heart with the idea of eros and death, and finally they will fall down one by one, during the dance of the seven veils, when they are sure they have reached their goal. At the end only a very simple iron crown will remain among the ruins of this golden and dissolute world. For a brief moment, the beauty of Salomé will meet the beauty of pureness, and she will be overwhelmed.

I believe Salomé is not only a story about love and death, and an important part is played by the eternal fight between the human and divine power; and the moon, in this nocturnal tragedy, will be the silent witness to human weakness.

Rosetta Cucchi
August 2014