Bard College Conservatory Orchestra Presents Semi-Staged Performance Of Richard Strauss's SALOME

The Bard Conservatory Orchestra joins an exciting principal cast of singers in a semi-staged performance of Richard Strauss's once infamous, now famous opera, Salome-a biblical story, with a twist. The program, directed by R. B. Schlather and performed by the Bard Conservatory Orchestra, Leon Botstein, conductor, features leading opera singers Melody Moore, Jay Hunter Morris, Nathan Berg, Betsy Bishop, Robert Stahley, and others, including students of the Conservatory's Graduate Vocal Arts Program. Salome takes place Friday, April 3, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, April 5, at 2 p.m. in the Fisher Center's Sosnoff Theater. Tickets start at $15 and can be ordered online at fishercenter.bard.edu or by calling the box office at 845-758-7900. $5 student tickets are available to Bard undergraduate students through the Passloff Pass.

Adapted from Oscar Wilde's one-act play, Richard Strauss's opera Salome depicts the biblical story of Salome, the Judean princess who demanded, and obtained, the head of St. John the Baptist. Bard Visiting Associate Professor of Music Peter Laki writes that the first performance of Salome, given in Dresden on December 9, 1905, caught even the most progressive critics off guard. "There was little doubt that the opera was a masterpiece, that its music was radically innovative, even 'revolutionary,' but many were profoundly disturbed by the image of Salome kissing the severed head of John the Baptist on the mouth," writes Laki, stressing that, despite its early notoriety, Salome was Strauss's first successful opera and went on to become part of the standard repertoire of every house that can meet the almost superhuman demands it places on the singers and the enormous orchestra alike. "The opera certainly stands with Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, which followed eight years later, at the threshold of a new era. It did away with many old taboos and presented human situations and emotions in a way they had never been presented before. Strauss made an old story breathtakingly new, boldly confronting the dark sides of the human psyche."

Cast:

• Melody Moore, Salome
• Jay Hunter Morris, Herod
• Nathan Berg, Jochanaan
• Betsy Bishop, Herodias
• Robert Stahley, Narraboth
• Hailey MacEvoy '20, Page of Herodias
• Ricardo Lugo, First Nazarene
• Ben Wager, Second Soldier
• Marc Molomet, First Jew
• Vincent Festa, Second Jew
• Cody Ray Caho '21,Third Jew
• Chauncey Parker, Fourth Jew
• Paul An, Fifth Jew
• Paul LaRosa, Second Nazarene
• Lighting Designer: Jax Messenger
• Projection Designer: S. Katy Tucker

To purchase tickets, call the Fisher Center box office at 845-758-7900 or go to fishercenter.bard.edu.