Richard Strauss: Salome
Karl Böhm
Label
DG
Catalogue No.
4807210
Barcode
00028948072101
Format
2-CD
About

When the young Karl Böhm, fresh from his studies in Vienna, returned to Graz to take up a post at the opera house which had a good reputation, his place, naturally, was at the bottom of the ladder and the operas of the great Richard Strauss were quite simply out of his reach. He conducted a performance of the Alpine Symphony in the Stefaniensaal in Graz and sent the laudatory reviews to Strauss, in the hope of making himself known to the composer as an interpreter of his work but he was not allowed near the operas. And when, eventually, he did, it was ‘Die Frau ohne Schatten’, ‘Ariadne auf Naxos’ and ‘Elektra’ that he conducted much more so than ‘Rosenkavalier’ or ‘Salome’. It may sound strange but out of the 147 performances of ‘Salome’ logged by the Vienna State Opera between 1945 and 1980, Böhm conducted only 14. His only official recording of the work was made ‘live’ in Hamburg on 4 November 1970. The part of the protagonist marked a first for Gwyneth Jones; it was later to become one of her signature roles.

TRACK LISTING / ARTISTS

RICHARD STRAUSS
Salome

Herod: Richard Cassily
Herodias: Mignon Dunn
Salome: Gwyneth Jones
Jochanaan: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Narraboth: Wieslaw Ochman
Herodias’s Page: Ursula Boese
Orchester der Hamburgischen Staatsoper
Karl Böhm

Recording information

Executive Producer: Dr. Hans Hirsch
Recording Producer: Wolfgang Lohse
Balance Engineer: Günther Hermanns
Recording Engineers: Joachim Niss, Jobst Eberhard
Recording Location: Hamburg State Opera, Hamburg, Germany, 4 November 1970 (Live Recording)

Reviews

‘Karl Böhm was probably the greatest Strauss opera conductor of his time. He was unique in the way he was able to combine the delicate transparency of the colorful orchestration and exotic harmony without underplaying the massive climaxes and Strauss’ “nerve-end contrapuntalism”.’ Fanfare

‘singing of grandeur and magical intensity [from Gwyneth Jones, in the last scene] … [Fischer-Dieskau’s] denunciation of the “Tochter Sodoms” chills the spine’ Gramophone