Seiji Ozawa conducts Salome at Tanglewood

August 4, 2001 performance reviewed by Dave Conlin Read

Current Tanglewood schedule and ticket info.

For his Tanglewood swan song, Seiji Ozawa chose to conduct Richard Strauss’ “Salome, Opus 54,” performed without staging and costumes – no dancing the Dance of the Seven Veils. No matter; Strauss’ music and Oscar Wilde’s poetry, brought to life by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and an impressive cast led by Deborah Voigt, were more than enough to elicit an eruption of applause that lasted well after Maestro Ozawa had scurried off the stage of the Kousevitsky Shed for the last time as BSO music director.

This was an hour and three-quarters of incomparable aural beauty; a sonic statue sculpted by Ozawa. Whenever anyone present muses on the Maestro’s Tanglewood tenure, it will reverberate in memory, as Haiku does.

In stead of a set full of scenery and costumes for the singers, they stood on a platform behind the orchestra. The opera’s literary and artistic antecedents include the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, a short story by Gustave Flaubert (“Herodias”), and a panoply of paintings, including one by Gustave Moreau that inspired Oscar Wilde.

With only minimal dramatic action to follow on stage, one was free to focus on Oscar Wilde’s poetry via the supertitles. For example: As soon as Salome’s entreaty to Jokanaan,

is thus rebuffed by Jokanaan:

Salome revises her opinion on his body and shifts her attention to his hair:

Left on the page, such language may look overblown, if descriptive and colorful. Its magic lays in the rhythm, the repartee of the dialogues, the contradictions and emotional swings. In performance, it allows the singers to display the full range of their gifts, as the score does the orchestra. What better choice than Salome as Ozawa’s swan song to Tanglewood?

It is delicious to speculate on the similies Wilde would draw if he were to describe Ms. Voigt’s performance. She was a commanding and brilliant presence; her performance was a masterpiece, rich as a Michelangelo.

This was Seiji Ozawa’s good bye to his beloved Tanglewood, delivered with the full vocabulary of music. He spoke no words to the audience – which would have been as silly as shining neon lights on the Sistene Chapel.