In Russia, the performance of «Salome» became possible only after the revolutions of 1917: the main stumbling block for theatres in the pre‑revolutionary era was the depiction of the prophet John the Baptist (Iochanan) on stage, which fell under the prohibition of the spiritual and censorship committees of the Russian Empire. The first Russian production set to music from Richard Strauss’s opera was the ballet scene «Salome’s Dance,» presented at the Bolshoi Theatre on February 6, 1921. This dance was choreographed by the famous Alexander Gorsky, who at that time was the head of the Bolshoi Ballet Company; it was performed by one of the leading ballerinas of the theatre, Alexandra Balashova.
On June 11, 1925, the entire opera was staged on the Bolshoi Theatre stage for the first time. This production (directed by Iosif Lapitsky, set designer Mikhail Kurilko) was practically transferred to the Bolshoi from the Leningrad State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet, where the premiere had taken place a year earlier. The performer of the title role, Valentina Pavlovskaya, the best Russian Salome of the 1920s, was also invited from Leningrad. This production was successful: it was revived and remained in the repertoire until 1929. However, after that, the stage history of this opera at the Bolshoi Theatre was interrupted for almost a century.
The second production was staged on the Historic Stage in 2021 by the theatre’s chief conductor, Tugan Sokhiev, the renowned German director Klaus Guth, and the set designer Étienne Plüss (Switzerland).
The new production of the Bolshoi Theatre is stylistically consistent with the fin de siècle era — the time when Wilde’s and Strauss’s *Salome* came into being. However, the biblical plot «sounds» very modern in it. This is a story about subconscious fears and an existential feeling of growing anxiety, about the desire to lose oneself in sensuality, about a passionate longing for freedom and the rejection of patriarchal traditions. «If you listen closely, behind Strauss’s musical beauties lie dangerous abysses and depths» (Klaus Guth).
