Oscar Wilde originally wrote his Salomé in French. Strauss saw the play in Lachmann's version and immediately set to work on an opera. The play's formal structure was well-suited to musical adaptation. Wilde himself described Salomé as containing "refrains whose recurring motifs make it so like a piece of music and bind it together as a ballad".
| Librettist | Hedwig Lachmann (after Oscar Wilde) |
| Date of composition | 1905 (1903-1905) |
| Premiered | 1905, December 9th in Dresden, Germany |
| First published | 1905, Adolph Fürstner in Berlin, Germany |
| Type | Opera |
| Catalogue | TrV 215 |
| Approx. duration | 100 minutes |
| Spoken language | German |
| Instruments |
Orchestra
Chorus/Choir - (all silent) Voice (Tenor) - Herodes, Tetrarch of Judaea and Perea Voice (Mezzo-Soprano) - Herodias, his wife (and sister-in-law) Voice (Soprano) - Salome, his stepdaughter (and niece) Voice (Baritone) - Jochanaan (John the Baptist) Voice (Tenor) - Narraboth, Captain of the Guard Voice (Contralto) - The Page of Herodias Voice (Tenor) - First Jew Voice (Tenor) - Second Jew Voice (Tenor) - Third Jew Voice (Tenor) - Fourth Jew Voice (Bass) - Fifth Jew Voice (Bass) - First Nazarene Voice (Tenor) - Second Nazarene Voice (Bass) - First soldier Voice (Bass) - Second soldier Voice (Bass) - A Cappadocian Voice - High ; A slave |
| Autotranslations beta |
Richard Strauss: Salome, TrV 215 Richard Strauss: Salome, TrV 215 Richard Strauss: Salome, TrV 215 |