Salome is no exception: Wilde’s play, as a retelling of the biblical story of the execution of John the Baptist with perverse and erotic twists, was immediately crossing a cultural line. In addition, Wilde was a seminal figure in the late-Victorian Decadent movement that rejected moral evaluations of art, revelled in the taboo, the perverse, and the excess, and railed against the dominant culture through these themes. Though by the fin-de-siècle Christianity’s dominance in Victorian England was weakening, the religion remained institutionally powerful. That Salome’s debut production was shut down due to censorship is hardly surprising. The play would eventually be published in France in 1893, and translated to English with illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley in 1894.

However, the London Examiner of Plays censored the production before it premiered on the basis that it represented biblical figures in perverse and erotic contexts. The production had a promising start: Wilde had recently found success as a playwright with the production of his society comedy, Lady Windermere’s Fan, in February of that year, and the internationally celebrated actress (and Wilde’s personal friend) Sarah Bernhardt had agreed to fill the leading role.

With a star cast of both well-known and new faces, this concert promises to enchant, move and fascinate.Oscar Wilde’s tragedy Salome was originally intended to debut at the Palace Theatre in London in 1892. Returning to DNO are Brian Mulligan, making his role debut as the prophet Jochanaan, and mezzo-soprano Doris Soffel as the villainous and conceited Herodias. The dramatic soprano Jennifer Holloway, whose portrayal of Salome has won international praise, will make her Dutch National Opera debut. This season, we present a concert version of this intense and sensual music drama will be accompanied from the pit by the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, led by Cornelius Meister. Now she can finally kiss his lips, which bear the bitter taste of blood. In a show of manipulation, muscle-flexing and seduction, Salome then performs a dance for her stepfather, whom she manipulates into ordering the execution of Jochanaan. When he rejects her advances, her desire turns into bloodthirstiness. When Salome flees the banquet at the court in Judea and the lascivious stares of her stepfather, King Herod, she is intrigued by the voice of the intractable prophet Jochanaan.

Salome play