[Met Performance] CID:302870



Salome
Metropolitan Opera House, Thu, December 20, 1990

Debut : Stephanie Sundine




Salome (134)
Richard Strauss | Oscar Wilde
Salome
Stephanie Sundine [Debut] [Debut and only performance]

Herod
Graham Clark

Herodias
Helga Dernesch

Jochanaan
Ekkehard Wlaschiha

Narraboth
Mark Baker

Page
Diane Kesling

Jew
Philip Cokorinos

Jew
Philip Creech

Jew
Bernard Fitch

Jew
John Gilmore

Jew
Anthony Laciura

Nazarene
John Cheek

Nazarene
Motti Kaston

Soldier
Ara Berberian

Soldier
Jeffrey Wells

Cappadocian
Russell Christopher

Slave
Michael Best

Executioner
Sheldon Scruggs


Conductor
James Conlon







Review 1:

John Rockwell in The New York Times
New Salome Makes Debut At the Met

Stephanie Sundine, who made her Metropolitan Opera debut on Thursday night in the title role of Richard Strauss's "Salome," is an American soprano who is an archetypal German soprano. In other words, she makes her impact ? and a considerable impact it is ? more through acting than singing.


This is not to say that she has an inconsequential voice. Her roles include the "Fidelio" Leonore and Isolde, and in smaller theaters her soprano rings out with authority. But it is not beautiful or commanding as such, and on Thursday there was a pronounced unsteadiness around the register break and a persistent pressed tension in her high notes; she hit them, but they did not bloom.


But Ms. Sundine is a fine actress, and she looks the part of Salome better than nearly everyone else around (except possibly Maria Ewing). She even managed to project charismatically in the context of Nikolaus Lehnhoff's production, which in the course of trying to turn biblical Judea into a chichi German Cocktail party makes Salome into a Kewpie doll. That reportedly did not suit Hildegard Behrens earlier this season, and it did not suit the somewhat similarly endowed Ms. Sundine, either.


Yet she rose above it to project a person obsessively possessed with eerie assurance, and even executed the oddly choreographed Dance of the Seven Veils with erotic authority. The audience responded with cheers; too bad this was the opera's final performance of the season.



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