Herbert von Karajan, Hildegard Behrens, Jose Van Dam, Agnes Baltsa, Karl-Walter Bohm, Wieslaw Ochman - Great Recordings Of The Century - Strauss, R.: Salome / Karajan, Behrens, Van Dam, Baltsa, et al

Herbert von Karajan's mastery of the opulent idiom of Richard Strauss is everywhere apparent in this recording of Salome, made in 1977-78 in conjunction with the first-ever Salzburg Festival production of the opera, conducted (as well as directed) by the Salzburg-born maestro. Never has the shimmering, feverish intensity of Strauss's colorful scoring been more tellingly captured on disc, although Karajan's fastidious direction and iron grip on the music are only a part of the reason: a good deal of credit belongs to the Vienna Philharmonic, which was in top form on this outing. As Salome, German soprano Hildegard Behrens makes a strong impression. This was the production that brought her into the international spotlight, where she would remain for a dozen years or so, eventually singing Brünnhilde at Bayreuth and the Met. Although a newcomer, she was a mature artist--40 years old--with a potent instrument. While her approach might lack the hair-raising intensity that Ljuba Welitsch brought to the part (to name another Karajan collaborator, and one of the century's greatest Salomes), it fit Karajan's conception of the role like a glove. José van Dam makes a regal Jochanaan, and Karl-Walter Böhm gives a smarmily spot-on characterization as Herodes. The ensemble work is superb, once again reflecting Karajan's scrupulous attention to detail. The recording, made in the Sofiensaal and engineered by a Decca team that was headed by James Lock, is splendidly balanced and imposing in its impact. --Ted Libbey Amazon.com

Great opera

Salome is required listening of great opera by a modern programmatic composer. Richard Strauss was very much inclined to such music. Much of his other opuses are tone poems.

In this opera, Richard Strauss captures biblical moments of interest to many. October 24, 2008

The Best Salome on Record!

This recording of Salome, made before the Salzburg Festival's assumption of the opera on the stage for their 1978 season, is perhaps the best recording of the masterpiece ever recorded. Herbert von Karajan isthe best Strauss conductor the world has or ever will see, as this recording and his Elektra, Ariadne, Frau Ohne Schatten, and Rosenkavalier has shown us. His complex understanding of Strauss' musical language and his innate sense of his rich, polyphonic lyricism has allowed his conducting of Strauss' music-dramas to bloom in such a way without the intruding loudness and excess energy that afflicts too any other conductors' perceptions of the pieces. No other recording has featured the waltz-like rhythms of Strauss' composition so effectively as Karajan's recording, and his vision is at once seductive, demented, and barbaric, each characteristic complementing each other without overpowering another.

That said, it is also the magnificent cast which makes this recording such a treasure for the music-lover. Although Hildegard Behrens was by no means a young soprano, her voice was at its freshest and most beautiful at this stage of her career. The vocal crisis that would soon affect her middle and low register and her diction are absent from this performance, and her high register glows like no other Salome had before. I find that her transformation from a naive teenager to a selfish, erotically charged, and almost demonic creature is the most compelling assumption of the role on disc, tying in very closely with Catherine Malfitano's excellent interpretation of the Jewish princess. The Jochanaan in this recording is Jose Van Dam, and while he does not have the Wotan-like dimensions of Hans Hotter (with Ljuba Welitsch, 1952) or Bryn Terfel (again, with Malfitano) on the role, he gives it an elegance of phrasing that gives his prophet a Biblical nobility overlooked by many gruff Baptists. A commanding performance. Salome's parents, Agnes Baltsa and Karl-Walter Böhm, are in many ways the best pairing on disc, with special mention going to Böhm for what is in my opinion the most royal and most commanding Herods on disc. I still like the Herodias of mezzos like Hanna Schwarz, Mignon Dunn, Astrid Varnay, and Leonie Rysanek, but Baltsa makes an aggressive creature out of Herodias which gives her character strength and bite. Wieslaw Ochman is the most beautiful Narraboth on disc. All in all, a strong cast with the most competent Strauss conductor to have taken the work to the studios. Highly recommended! February 2, 2007

The Karajan Salome: A Winner!

This 1978 studio recording of Salome is among the finest Salomes commercially available, though it can be argued, and it is, that Ljuba Wellitsch's earlier WWII Era recording is the ultimate, since her chilling portrayal of the heroine is largely considered as the creme de la creme. Other superior Salomes have included the Wagnerian/Strauss diva Birgit Nilsson in the 60's and 70's, whose mastership of the German repertoire is mind-blowing. Hildegard Behrens must have grown up admiring Birgit Nilsson for in this critic's personal opinion, Behrens can suitabely be hailed as the successor to the throne of Birgit Nilsson. Hildegard Behrens sang the same repertoire, including Brunhilde at Bayreuth and Tosca at the Met. Behrens arrived late into the opera scene. In this recording she is already 40. Nevertheless, she packs a punch as Salome, perfectly comforming to the vision of Karajan's interpretation, which this recording is all about. Her voice is light and she sings in such a way that she makes her voice appear grander and bigger than it actually is but it works for Salome, since we must take in mind that Salome is a teenager and so a relatively lyric voice with dramatic force behind it is absolutely perfect for the role. The final scene is so well-done and sends chills down my spine.

Herbert Von Karajan had never recorded or staged Salome, though it was inevitable since his involvement with the Salzburg Festival made use of Strauss operas- Ariadne of Naxos and most notably Der Rosenkavalier. Karajan's version of Salome is classical, not modern. He is evoking the Salome that caused a scandal in its premiere. When it was first performed in 1900 something, at the turn of the century, it rocked Edwardian sensibility. Its theme of necrophilia, sexual frustration and not to mention lascivious dancing and the beheading of the very beloved Biblical/Christian figure of John the Baptist was too much to take in for a work of theatre. It was banned in London and when the opera came out, Strauss got himself into trouble, for very few places outside his native Austria would perform the opera. It was banned at the Met for years and not until the 20's did it make a return. The primal intensity of the piece is quite clear throughout and the performers are convincingly dramatic. They include:

Jose Van Dam as Jochanan/John the Baptist. Van Dam is a supremely talented bass baritone. He has experience in such diverse roles as Leporello in Mozart's Don Giovanni, King Phillip in Verdi's Don Carlo and here he performs one very credible John the Baptist. His voice is sonorous and he does play the part of the Prophet well. He is mannered and refined in his lyricism as well. To my knowledge, no other baritone has sung the part so well.

Agnes Baltsa as Queen Herodias. She has a dramatically compelling mezzo soprano voice, though at time she may come off as looney, but as the vindictive and mean-spirited queen she is doing a fabulous job. Baltsa is yet another talented singer with many roles to her credit, among them Bizet's Carmen, Cherubino from Nozze Di Figaro and Rosina in Barber of Seville. She has no problem with the German language though it is also very evident she is more comfortable singing in Italian or French. She is not too bad as the Queen however, eventhough there are superior Queen Herodias out there.

All in all, this is a fine recording, the true stars being Karajan himself and his fine interpretation (not to mention the great recording engineering done in Vienna) Jose Van Dam's Jochanan, Agnes Baltsa's Queen, and the star of the show, the soprano Hildegard Behrens. This was the role that made her a star. She would go on to sing Brunhilde and Tosca, her career extending through the 80's and 90's. But if you are looking for other Salomes that are slightly better look for Solti's recording with the incomparable Birgit Nilsson, or the earlier one with Ljuba Wellitsch or the modern and recent one starring Inge Nielsen. September 21, 2005

A recording to admire rather than love

This recording tried to trump the famous performance under Solti that showcased Birgit Nilsson in blazing form. Karajan waited to find a Salome who could compete on a different scale--smaller-voiced, warmer, younger, and without the Nilsson steeliness. He found her in Hildegard Behrens, but the result, to my ears, isn't really right.

Jose van Dam was a Karajan favorite then, but his Jokanaan sounds gritty, forced, and totally without the spirit of a Christian prophet. Behrens herself is a wonderful singer, but she puts a distance between herself and Salome's lurid decadence. As does Karajan. I think the missing ingredient here is Struass's vulgarity, which is the glue that holds this biblical shocker together when it works.

This is one of those rare occasions where an unsublte rip-snorter like Solti is preferable. September 5, 2005

An ode to sensuousness.

Generally, late 1970's and 1980's Karajan studio recordings, to my liking at least, must be approached with care and even mistrust. His immense talent not being the subject of discussion, yet as he aged he tended to give a lot more attention to how things were played, how they actually sounded, than to what was being played, somewhat along the lines of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf or Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who also tended to give so much attention to these matters as to sound affected and artificial. Those special qualities (see following paragraph) that so much distinguished his recordings with the Philhamonia Orchestra made during the 1950's for EMI, or his early '60's discs made for Decca, EMI and DG with the Vienna and Berlin orchestras gradually faded along the 1970's and the 1980's.

But not in this recording. This is easily the best conducted Salome in recorded history, and that so in a work that has been particularly lucky in this respect. What we have here is a return in spirit to "das wunder Karajan" of 30 years earlier, to what lay behind the acronym of "Toscawängler" coined by some London critics of the early 1950's when Karajan righfully dazzled audiences all over post-war Europe once the Allied authorities in occupied Germany and Austria allowed him to return to work. That the 70-year old conductor was able to return to his form upon which much of his fame was built is short of miraculous, in a work that so much exhudes the sexual reckoning of youth. Tension along the two hour-long performance never ceases and by the time the final orchestral crashes aurally picture Salome being literally crushed under Herod's soldiers's shields, you breathe in relief. Wow! is most likely what you may be able to utter ...

The recording is based on a Salzburg Festival production for which a formidable cast was assembled. Yet Karajan seemed to view the opera as some kind of extended-length orchestral work with vocal obbligati, as the orchestra is the prime player, indeed the real protagonist. And the VPO gladly picked up the challenge, playing like gods and captured in superb sound that has endured the test of time (the recording dates from 1978!) and puts to shame many a modern disc. Commisioned by HMV to Decca, the latter's engineers no doubt did their best to show their arch-rival EMI colleagues what they could achieve (the producer was Jimmy Lock, the legendary John Culshaw's right hand in many a Decca Vienna recording project).

Featured singers have mostly retired by now, but fortunately for us were caught in their prime, especially Behrens and van Dam. I've seen that others in this site have referred at length to the vocal highlights of this set, so I won't, rather avoiding being repetitive; I agree with all their laudatory comments.

In sum, any newcomer to Salome won't go wrong with this audio-only set. If video is a must, I'd propose the superb Malfitano Berlin performance, a rendition also very well conducted by the much-lamented Giuseppe Sinopoli, yet available only as a VHS tape from Teldec (I don't know if there are plans to issue it in dvd); if video is a must but VHS is a no-no, I'd propose the Covent Garden Peter Hall production available in dvd from Pioneer/Kultur, with Maria Ewing as Salome, conducted by Sir Edward Downes (but don't expect from Sir Edward's remarkable effort Karajan's refinement or Sinopoli's insights). Settle for Malfitano's Covent Garden performance under Dohnányi on a Decca dvd only if that's the only one you can have access to. October 25, 2004

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