Salome (2008) 10'
Instrumentation:
Oboe and cello
Bass-baritone and organ
Premiere:
April 3, 4, & 5, 2008, Dwight Chapel, Yale University
Listen to a synthesized version of The Dance of the Seven Veils (8.82MB . MP3)
Incidental music for a production of Oscar Wilde's Salome directed by Emma Lunbeck with Jenny Nissel as Salome. During the dance of the seven veils, choreographed by Anna Lindemann and Emma Lunbeck, 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. Iokanaan's imprisonment in a cistern is evoked through sound as the organ drones and fritters beneath the sung lines of the prophet that are based in part on the hymn to St. John the Baptist and that gradually sink into the motivic musical world of Salome's dance of the seven veils.