Met Opera Live in HD – Salome

19 MAY 2025: Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin takes the podium to conduct Strauss’s one-act tragedy – transmitted live to cinemas on May 17.

Strauss' shattering masterpiece Salome about the most notorious femme fatale in opera explores the dark depths of desire, power, and the consequences of unrestrained passion, unleashing a torrent of sensual, intoxicating music as the young princess's twisted obsession with John the Baptist reaches a shocking climax.

Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts his first Met performances of Strauss’s white-hot one-act tragedy, which receives its first new production at the company in 20 years. Claus Guth, one of Europe’s leading opera directors, gives the biblical story – already filtered through the beautiful and strange imagination of Oscar Wilde’s play – a psychologically perceptive Victorian-era setting rich in symbolism and subtle shades of darkness and light. Headlining the new staging is soprano Elza van den Heever as the abused and unhinged heroine, who demands the head of Jochanaan, sung by celebrated baritone Peter Mattei. Tenor Gerhard Siegel is Salome’s lecherous stepfather, King Herod, with mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung as his wife, Herodias, and tenor Piotr Buszewski as Narraboth.

The live cinema transmission is part of the Met’s award-winning LIVE IN HD series, presented in Germany and Austria by Clasart Classic.

For more information, please visit www.metimkino.de.

Original title of music work Salome
Composer Richard Strauss
Orchestra / Band The Metropolitan Opera
Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Choir The Metropolitan Opera
Stage Director Claus Guth
Soloist Elza van den Heever
Soloist Michelle DeYoung
Soloist Gerhard Siegel
Soloist Peter Mattei