Salome by Anna Lindemann

Premiere | 3,4,& 5 April 2008, Dwight Chapel, Yale University

During the dance of the seven veils, Salome, with increasing impatience, rejects the members of the court that approach her for a dance and eventually turns to seduce the musicians that accompany her, only to silence the oboist and pluck the strings of the cello before seizing the cellist's bow at the end of the dance. Sound evokes Iokanaan's imprisonment in a cistern as the organ drones and fritters beneath the sung lines of the prophet. Iokanaan's melodies are based on the hymn to St. John the Baptist, but as the play progress they sink into the motivic musical world of Salome's dance of the seven veils.