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09/29/2025
Richard Strauss: Salome, Opus 54
Malin Byström (Salome), Johan Reuter (Jochanaan), Gerhard Siegel (Herod), Katarina Dalayman (Herodias), Bror Magnus Tødenes (Narraboth), Hannah Hipp (Herodias’s Page), Michael Müller-Kasztelan (First Jew), Petter Moen (Second Jew), John Michael Wrensted Olsen (Third Jew), James Kryshak (Fourth Jew), Callum Thorpe (Fifth Jew), Clive Bayley (First Nazarene), James Stephen Ley (Second Nazarene), Igor Bakan (First Soldier), James Platt (Second Soldier), James Berry (A Cappadocian), Rita Therese Ziem (A Slave), Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Gardner (conductor)
Recording (live): Usher Hall, Edinburgh (14 August 2022) – 99’48
2 SACDs Chandos CHSA 5356(2) – Book in English, Libretto in German and English
There are only so many ways of writing the same thing, so this recording stretches my invention and I will perforce state my case immediately: the sound is so bad it is almost impossible to judge the performance.
Salome is caught live in concert at the Usher Hall during the Edinburgh Festival, 2022. Reviews at the time were positive, so if you were there you struck lucky. Some bad Strauss recordings have come my way recently – a live Elektra seemingly recorded from mid‑orchestra in the pit and which started with an onstage scream that turned out to be the most exciting moment; another Elektra which sounded as though random members of the public had been rounded up from a nearby bus‑stop to be hustled into the studio and prodded into performance, bewildered by the surrounding cacophony. The engineering of this new Salome is reminiscent of the former. The sound is muddy and recessed, the singers are distant and often almost inaudible. The 1942 recording of Strauss himself conducting excerpts is clearer. A lot of it is just noise but I gritted my teeth and got on with listening. Apologies if I underestimate anyone’s achievement.
Edward Gardner conducts the Bergen Philharmonic and this is generally the most successful aspect of the recording. Despite the lack of balance, one can hear a positive performance unfold and at times it reveals good detail. The drama builds well and the big moments are balanced by effective woodwind and percussion, often at an advantage as their moments often tend to be highlighted by Strauss’s scoring, so it is not all crash, bang, wallop.
Malin Byström takes the title role and this proves the most frustrating element of the recording, as she sounds as though she is a very fine Salome, a role she has performed in staged productions with success. The voice is perhaps one size too small but has a good focus and I imagine it cut well through the orchestra in the performance. Her tone, when not pushed, has a pleasing gleam. In her attempted seduction of Jochanaan, Byström reveals appropriate vocal purity counterbalanced by flashes of brilliance, and her Bs and B flats possess some radiance, likewise when she first wheedles Herod for Jochanaan’s head. Her final scene is effective and sensitively supported by Gardner. Her last sustained A sharps have power but sometimes her tone becomes hard at forte as she attempts to ride the storm and she starts to scream, and each time the voice descends you lose her altogether. As Herod first asks, ‘Wo ist Salome?’ Indeed. It is a shame, as Byström’s reading sounds thoughtful and intelligent.
But she doesn’t have much to work against with Johan Reuter’s Jochanaan. His opening phrasing is a bit choppy, and once he is actually onstage he gathers a bit of steam but not much, and the higher notes are not thrilling: the F above the stave is not his friend, he often resorts to hectoring the line and in moments of high drama he is drowned out altogether. His fanaticism and resulting plight are not conveyed.
As Herodes, Gerhard Siegel fares best of the singers, probably because his tenor is so well‑focussed and the vocal line hits an aural sweet spot which allows some penetration through the mix. This is obviously a superb performance, vivid, alert and accurately sung, and Siegel owns the role. Katarina Dalayman’s Herodias makes little mark, her voice subsumed into the murk with the odd blazing A to remind us she is there.
The remaining cast is so-so. No‑one is actively bad, some are just dull, and anyone singing in a group is generally lost. Clive Bayley’s First Nazarene shines out as pleasingly forthright.
As a whole, this is a dispiriting release. If you have a favourite purveyor of Judean perversion, anyone from Ljuba Welitsch to Hildegard Behrens, Cheryl Studer to Asmik Grigorian, stick with them. Even if you collect Salomes, I really would not bother with this recording.
Francis Muzzu
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