The Baltimore Annex Theatre brings its particular take on the tale of Salome at month's end. A young touring ensemble, BAT has been touring around with its use of puppets, montage and various other elements to fill in the spaces around the actors. The biblical story is reshaped and re-imagined by the group. Themes from the old tale speak to certain universals that the group is looking to play-...

Once in a great while someone comes along whose talent leaves you breathless. Swedish soprano Erika Sunngardh’s performance of the title role in Richard Strauss’ opera Salome last weekend at Florentine Opera was nothing short of magnificent in every regard. This opera, based on the play by Oscar Wilde, is the most disturbing in the repertory. Salome, beautiful princess of Judea, falls in love and lust with the captive John the Baptist (Jochanaan).

The Florentine Opera Company continues its production of Salome today with a 7:30 p.m. performance in the Marcus Center. Based on the Oscar Wilde play about the New Testament seductress, this Richard Strauss opera contains a controversial scene in which Salome, after demanding . . .

The Florentine Opera Company continues its production of Salome tonight with a 7:30 production in the Marcus Center. Based on the Oscar Wilde play about the New Testament seductress, this Richard Strauss opera contains a controversial scene in which Salome, after demanding John the Baptist's death, has sex with his . . .

Perhaps no other composer’s career fell so neatly into two distinct halves as that of Richard Strauss (1864-1949). He began as an almost exclusively orchestral composer, turning out one great tone poem after another until roughly the first decade of the 20th century. Then came his “second act” as a composer of operas. While Strauss’ first two operas remained quite firmly grounded in the same Wagnerian tradition as his many orchestral tone poems, his third opera, Salome, marked the turning point—and what a decidedly revolutionary one it was! Salome burst upon the early-20th-century music scene in 1905, ushering in musical modernism and even the avant-garde. Premiering in Dresden, Germany, Salome was condemned by musically conservative critics for its perceived moral decadence, but the more adventurous found it to be a fresh start for an art form that was becoming somewhat staid and predictable.

Richard Strauss’ Salome is one of the world's great operas, combining the last remnants of 19th-century Romanticism with a ravishing score, seeped in late- Viennese tradition but with the bite of the emerging 20thcentury trend toward harsher realism. Strauss’ glorious score transforms the sexual decadence and social depravity of the source material into a breathtaking harmonic outpouring of frenzied erotic frustration that can only self-destruct, conjuring up the awesome trappings of “terror and pity” that underline Aristotelian tragedy. The music is expressively melodious and carefully banks its resources within a seductive yet surprisingly subdued lyricism. Salome encompasses the torrent of high drama while leaning only slightly toward . . .

Based on an Oscar Wilde play, the Richard Strauss opera Salome was incredibly controversial when it debuted in 1905 and, indeed, is still quite shocking by today’s standards, thanks to a climatic scene where the title character has sex with John the Baptist’s severed head.