Overview
- Titov’s staging presents a faceless Salome behind a white helmet who wields an axe, with the execution depicted through deliberately grotesque evisceration.
- General music director James Gaffigan brought the work to the company’s Schillertheater base, and the review reports overpowering fortissimos with diminished impact in quieter passages.
- Designer Rufus Didwiszus’s bronze-colored stage box reflects sound in a way the review says makes voices drone and skews the balance.
- The ensemble earns strong praise, highlighting Nicole Chevalier’s commanding title role and Günter Papendell’s incisive Jochanaan, supported by sharply detailed person direction.
- The production’s enigmatic images prompt symbolic readings, including insect-like associations with Salome’s headgear that suggest predatory sexuality.