Australian director Adena Jacobs is making her ENO debut with a new production of Strauss's scandalous opera. She's earned a reputation for subversive, feminist works like 'The Howling Girls' that break with operatic tradition and push the human voice to its limits. So her take on 'Salome', a story of female lust, is one to look forward to.
'Salome' is based on Oscar Wilde's story of a Biblical anti-heroine who demands her enemy John the Baptist's head on a plate. Strauss's music uses luscious orchestration to conjure up the world of Herod's court, and the story's shocking, borderline necrophiliac climax.