Salome, the darkly seductive opera, returns to Lyric Opera of Chicago after two decades

Across the centuries, the story of Salome has been staged, scored, adapted, pushed and pulled in a welter of ways, always finding new ways to shock.

On Sunday, the curtain went up on Richard Strauss’s version at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, for the company’s first “Salome” in 20 years. Now this opera takes its turn in a long line of the bloody and the bleak.

Here are five things to know about “Salome.”

A text from the gospels

The story of “Salome” at its crux tells about the beheading of John the Baptist, elaborating the 2,000-year-old texts from the gospels of Matthew and Mark. In the Bible story, Salome dances for King Herod so impressively that she is offered anything she wants. She consults her mother, who instructs her to ask for the head of John the Baptist on a platter.

Oscar Wilde’s stage adaptation altered the story slightly, so that Salome has a crush on John the Baptist, asks of her own volition for the head, and then kisses it when she receives it. “It’s like a love scene, only that it’s with a severed head, you know?” said Julia Burbach, the London-based director of Lyric’s production.

There’s nudity, sort of

In Wilde’s play and Strauss’s opera, Salome’s dance is called the Dance of the Seven Veils, and in many stagings the singer portraying Salome strips naked during the dance. Lyric’s take, which originated at the Royal Opera House in London in 2008, sees Salome walking through flashbacks to her earlier life during the Seven Veils music instead of dancing seductively. But cheekily, the executioner is naked instead.

A showcase for soprano

The role of Salome poses significant challenges for a singer. It requires high notes in the upper soprano register, but also dips down into low mezzo-soprano range. Strauss famously called the ideal singer for Salome “a 16-year-old princess with the voice of Isolde,” referring to a Wagnerian role that needs a big voice.

The demands on the singer as an actor are also stiff — she must convincingly range from dancing seductively to showing attraction to the decapitated head of John the Baptist. Lyric’s Salome for this production, Jennifer Holloway, joined the production only a month ago after the show’s original soprano, Elena Stikhina, withdrew because of her pregnancy. But Holloway, who is based in Atlanta, specializes in the role, having sung it in Dresden, Leipzig, Bilbao and in her hometown.

A story set in fascist Italy

With its depictions of terrible people, the opera has often spurred associations with current events. The director of the London production that Lyric is reviving here, David McVicar, set his “Salome” in fascist Italy in the 1930s, which Guardian critic Tim Ashley observed underscores how abuse breeds abuse.

Lyric director Burbach noted that the 1930s are close enough to the modern day that the audience feels immediacy. But even since this version premiered in 2008, things hit differently. “#MeToo has happened,” Burbach said. “The political world has changed. There are parallels there that now we might have other names to associate. David mentioned [Jeffrey] Epstein: ‘It’s like Epstein, it’s that kind of household.’”

A history of censorship

Because of the opera’s violence and sexuality, it has often run afoul of censors. Burbach said this version is tamer than many others, with suggestions of offstage violence instead of literality. “There’s the odd toss and tumble, but we don’t see any actual very brutal violence. We don’t see the decapitation.”

But the audience does see the severed cranium, unlike in the first Royal Opera’s performance in 1910, when the censors would not allow John the Baptist’s head to be shown onstage. Salome instead professed her love to an empty silver platter.