Strauss╒s opera ╥Salome,╙ which the English journalists were privileged to see in Dresden, impressed them more than it did their German colleagues. Certainly the opera owes little of its fascination to the ╥book.╙ Wilde╒s play, on which it is founded, is a singularly frigid piece of work. It is really a series of lyrics in the vein of Baudelaire╒s ╥Fleurs du Mal,╙ with a few suggestions from the Song of Songs thrown in to remind us that the scene is laid in Judaea and not in Paris; the passion of Salome for John is cold and mechanical; its very perversity becomes dull and platitudinous; her passionate declarations of love have no dramatic force, but are comparable rather in their effect to some lurid decorative frieze in a dark and gloomy chamber. The play could thrill no one, but the opera is a succession of ╥thrills.╙ The grinning skeletons start into life, and we get the impression that we are witnessing the play of human passion. It is an amazing transformation.
