Salome (Teatro Comunale di Bologna)

From the moonlit courtyard of King Herod's palace, Narraboth, the head of the gaurds, watches the beautiful Princess Salome inside the palace as she dines with her mother, Herodias, and her step-father, Herod. Soon the princess bursts onto the terrace. From below the ground, imprisoned in a deep cistern, she hears the voice of Jochanaan (John the Baptist), blaspheming her mother. She is transfixed by his voice, and demands that the guards bring him to her. When they refuse, she coyly asks Narraboth, who obeys the command of the girl he desires. When he is brought to her, she is heavily attracted to him, despite (or perhaps because of) his ashen face and unkempt, dirty appearance. She expresses her desire to touch him, but he rebuffs her, and speaks only about coming of the Son of Man, and the promise of the Messiah. When Salome continues to beg for tenderness from Jochanaan, Narroboth stabs himself in despair, and collapses, dead. Salome doesn't notice; she watches as Jochanaan is lowered back into the cistern.

Herod and Herodias emerge from the party at the palace. When Herod slips in some of Narraboth's blood, he begins to hallucinate, and Herodias scorns him. Jochanaan's voice can again be heard cursing Herodias. The queen demands her husband to turn the prophet over the Jews, but Herod fears Jochanaan and refuses, saying he cannot. Herod then turns his attention to his step-daughter Salome. He lecherously asks her to dance for him, saying that he will give her anything in the world in return for a dance. She makes him promise that he will, in fact, give her anything, and he promises. Salome then performs the infamous "Dance of the Seven Veils," ending with the scandalous removal of the seventh veil at her step-father's feet. Herod delightedly asks Salome what she would like as her prize. Salome demands the head of Jochanaan on a silver platter. Herod is shaken, and requests that she asks anything but that—jewels, other finery, but Salome is resolute. Her father is obligated by his vow, and he obeys her. Soon, the executioner's hand delivers the severed head of the prophet on a silver platter to the ecstatic girl. Salome caresses the bloody head, adoring it and kissing it. Herod is repulsed and frightened, and orders his guards to crush the girl to death. Erika Sunnegardh (Salome), Mark S. Doss (Jochanaan), Robert Brubaker (Herod), Dalia Schaechter (Herodias), Mark Milhofer (Narraboth).