Richard Strauss - Salome / Peter Hall · Edward Downes · Maria Ewing, · ROH Covent Garden

All right. I asked for it. Despite my previous resolution not to buy another Kultur DVD ever again I bought this. I had the video, which like almost all Kultur products was, from the technical aspect, second rate. However, the performances of all the major singer/actors, particularly Maria Ewing and Michael Devlin are outstanding; as is the staging. In preparation for the new Salomes about to be released (Teresa Stratas and Karita Matilla) I wanted to have another viewing of this landmark production. My hope was that the DVD would be better than the video.Silly me!! I foolishly thought that Kultur would have cleaned it up the way responsible companies do before releasing a video as a DVD. But no. Just as with their "Turandot", they start with a shoddy video and rerelease it as a shoddy DVD. The sound (stereo only) and vision are muddy. The subtitles are in English only and cannot be turned off. There are no liner notes and no extras.So why, you may ask, am I giving it 5 stars? It is for the same reason I would give the Caballe "Norma" five stars despite its flawed recording. This is a unique excellent production. Would that any other company than Kultur had produced this DVD!!As I wrote in my review of their "Turandot": I wish Kultur would go bankrupt and get out of the way.

I bought this because I saw a video of Maria Ewing singing Carmen, because I had not heard of her before and thought she was wonderful, but not because I really expected to like the opera. Disclosure: I am an amateur classical musician of many years experience, but am far from being an opera buff. I was surprised. Strauss' music is hardly what you could call melodic, but it gives truly thrilling expression to the plot and the emotions of the characters. Not much of it is really nice, but it is very intense, and when it is discordant it is so for a reason. I won't presume to review Maria Ewing, except to say she's a fabulous singer, and has the most expressive face and body of any singer I have ever seen. She even dances, and, yes, she does stand on stage nude, full frontal, at the end of the Dance of the Seven Veils. The emotional content and symbolism of this plot, originally Oscar Wilde's, is VERY dense and complex...whew! The supporting cast and orchestra and production are excellent, and Michael Devlin as an almost supernatural John the Baptist nearly steals the show in the scenes in which he appears.

I have seen "Salome" at Covent Garden (not this production) and the Met, but I have never felt so felt its intensity. I think this may be, in a curious way, a "chamber" opera; its focus is so on nuances of obsession (usually sexual, of course) that it benefits from close quarters. I have seen Maria Ewing only in this one role, but in this she is stunning; first sinister, then frightening (because wierdly believable), then monstrous. Her two foils are this production's Herod: coward, lecher, bully, but in the end convincingly holding to some limit to indecency; and Johannan (the Baptist), chaste as ivory (as the lady says) and as passionately so as the lady is vile. The orchestra is good, the musical interpretation is right (neither tame nor manic) and the staging, with its creepy moon, suggestive dungeon, and hommages to Klimpt and Beardsley just exactly right. Terrific! Turn your own living room into Sodom and Gommorah.

I am not really a fan of Strauss operas. They are too dark and ponderous for my taste. But I have treasured an old vinyl record of his "Dance of the Seven Veils' on one side, and 'Although Sprach Zarathustra' on the other. When I found this version of 'Salome' by Maria Ewing, I immediately ordered it, since she is fantastic in 'Il Barbiere di Siviglia'. She is excellent in 'Salome' also. Of course, I was astounded to see her nude ending of 'Dance of the seven veils'.

This performance of Salome is both superbly sung and brilliantly acted, especially by Maria Ewing, whose intensity of focus is utterly extraordinary. (At the time of the filming she was married to the director, one of masters of the stage, Peter Hall.) The rest of the cast is terrific -- Kenneth Riegel as a Herod obsessive and veering toward insanity, Michael Devlin as rock-firm Jokanaan. The design and especially lighting is gorgeous. The orchestra projects Strauss's great score with surging warmth and energy..

The Maria Ewing version of Salome in combination with Edward Downes gives us a gripping performance erotic and sensual. There is nothing else like it that grab your attention so completely and with such satisfaction.JG

Excellent production , good singing and acting , well worth watching.

This a fantastic dvd and I highly recommend it

what a fine performance by all WONDERFUL STRAUSS

Absolutely brilliant! Maria Ewing is amazing. You won't see a more intense Salome.

Good quality DVD

This performance is "first class".Maria Ewing is a great singer & her acting acting is superb.Maria's " Dance of the 7 veils " is very well performed.

This is the best Salome I know. The singing and playing are superb, and Ewing, better than any other, brings out the self obsession and madness of Salome. Her ending the Dance of the Seven Veils starkers is a bonus.