The fourty-ninth classical recording: #564 Richard Strauss - Salome
Recently we went to see ENO's interesting version of Salome. If you've read the reviews, you might have seen that the production is misguided - an effort to modernize it without making use of the modernization and a haphazardly thrown together set of elements that never quite comes off. The music was still great and the performances good, but I do feel the staging may have distracted me from time to time.
The music sounded good, following the emotions of the (original) piece well. The dance of the seven veils sounds good, a nicely middle eastern influenced piece that creates its own images. It's clearly the highlight of the show and works as an amazing centre piece. The vocals weren't always as powerful in this version, but did well to tell its story - wtih some specific settings - which created a great piece of music.