"SALOME."

Mataura Ensign, 27 January 1911, Page 7

"SALOME."

+ AN INSPIRED CREATION. HISTORY'S TERRIBLE FIGURE. For the third time Dr. Strauss' "Salome" held a great audience captive at Covent Garden last night (says the 'Daily Mail' of December 13). Again we saw the eag?r. restless faces before the curtain went up and heard the nervous .laugh, the murmur of uneasy questions. And again the audience was struck into silence when the house was darkened and the lithe, insinuating Salome motive crept out from the sibilant instruments and smote the smiles from their lips and strangled the halfspoken whisper in their throats. Twice we have had the Salome of Mme. Ackte's inspired creation—the Salome of inherent, studied- evil, the Salome of hateful instincts, inhuman passions, lust of blood—the Salome of essential, terrifying depravity. Twice we have shuddered at this beautiful fiend, trembled at her ghastly fascination, turned in horror from the frightful spectacle of her monstrous passion. And now we have seen the Salome of Mme. von Rappe, the Salome who more nearly approaches the damsel of history, the Salome who almost claims our compassion as the victim of circumstances. An Instant Appeal. Darkly beautiful, small, with oval face, with large, lustrous eyes, the small, straight nose widening slightly at the nostrils, framed in the black, heavy mass of her jewel-loaded hair, Mme. von Rappe made instant appeal by the Oriental glamor of her appearance. The poise of the head, the curve of the small, red mouth, the long, dark eyelashes and heavy eyelids, all went to make up tbe portrait of a true daughter of Syria. And her acting is as true to her conception of the part as her beauty is representative of the land of her origin. ■ We saw last night a Salome who, though inevitably evil, trained to vice, contemptuous of crime if crime came between her and her desire, yet had some little grain of goodness deep buried in her heart beneath a weight of artificial sin. Up to the present phase of her life this little seed of good, a kind of halfpromise of a better self, had lain dormant, unsuspected. Perhaps it stirred slightly at the banquet, compelling the lonely girl to fly from the loathsome presence of her abominable stepfather and seek instinctively the dark peace of the night without. For when she appears on the terrace her soul is filled with a new and strange emotion—disgust of her life, bred of the horrors of Herod's Courts and of her detested attraction for that Neronic sovereign. Ths Prophet's Scorn. It is when-she is in this state of unwonted receptivity that she hears for the first time the inspired tones of the Prophet crying al nid a message of hope. She stops dead and listens intently. That was something new, something the like of which she has never heard, .something which creates a new and unknown sense in her. As yet absolutely ignorant of good and evil, unable to compare them or weigh their values, this voice draws her irresistibly. "Bring forth that man," she commands. And when her eyes fall on him her whole being is filled with this nameless attraction. Without knowing what she does, or why, she pours forth her supplication to this strange being who has touched an unsuspected chord in her nature. Without knowing it, her passion for him is bred of purity, that purity which he has awakened; but she, who has never yet conceived any but base emotions, is wholly incapable of expressing this her first noble impulse through any but a base medium. The mainspring of her efforts to fascinate the Prophet is the tiny spark of latent purity which lias been suddenly fanned into flame by the presence of a pure-j souled being. j The- Prophet understands this, and in his denunciation of Herodias, that monster among the mothers of history, he holds out hope of redemption to her daughter. Salome's blind, choked soul cannot grasp the inner meaning of his apparent scorn of her, cannot reach up to tbe height of his nobility, and when he leaves her the weight "of her inherited, inculcated baseness pours over her, and she clamors for revenge on the insult. This flood of hatred holds her, up to the last moment, until she has received and is gloating over her dread-

fill reward. And then the waves of passion stand bad': from her, and it is with a clear kno\vb-<lge that she whispers, "Tlion would:-'' have blessed me." That is the difference between Mmc. Ackte's and Mme. von Rappe's interpretation. Mme. Ackte's Salome is a figure of terror—-Mme. von Rappe's a figure of" tragedy. Mme. von Raprie carried out her conception of the part in an impressive manner. Her voice is perhaps too frail for the exacting music, and it was sometimes overpowered by the orchestra. But this detracted less from the total inipvps f -.io:> of her performance than might bo expected, and she fully ; deserved the enthusiastic applause which greeted her at the fall of the curtain. The remaining members of the cast, which was unchanged from the two first representations, repeated their previous successes, and Mr Beecham again conducted brilliantly. Salome at Hotna. On Thursday night (writes the 'Daily Mail's'musical critic) I saw Salome—-half-animal, half-woman, perhaps the most terrible figure in all history. With the rest of the huge audience at Covent Garden I shuddered at her savagery, shrank from her inhuman cruelty, gasped at her wonderful, treacherous beauty. Yesterday I saw Mme. Aino A-ckte. A tall, fair woman, with a slender figure, was lying back on a prosaic sofa in an equally prosaic sitting-room. The contrast was bewildering. It was only when she moved that one recognised the subtle grace, the indefinable charm of motion which caused London to cheer itself hoarse at the Opera. The beauty was there, only it was the clear-skinned beauty of the north instead of the dark fascination of the East. As I gazed at her the picture of her debut in Paris a few years ago came before my mind. Marguerite, kneeling in the cathedral, with a flood of prismatic color from the oriel window staining her white robe and turning her golden hair to strange shades of copper. And then Salome. Salome scattered over with flashing jewels, her eyes full of hatred, her whole body writhing with the passion of vengeance. And now— Mme. Ackte, in her comfortable modern sitting-room. It was startling. Inventor of the Dance. "Thank you," said that marvellous voice in a careful whisper, in reply to my congratulations, "but I ought not to see you at all. I never see anyone after I have sung, especially after Salome, which is a terrible strain. The moment the opera is over I drive straight home and go to bed, completely v/orn out, and stay there for the whole of the next,day. "What can I tell you? No, I have never been in the East, and I thought out the dance entirely by myself and from books and pictures. "Dr Strauss taught me to sing the role, but I invented the dance absolutely. Of course I love the part. It is so wonderfully inspiring. I have sung it at Berlin, Dresden, Leipsio, Munich, Stockholm and many other places. At Cologne, by the way, I sang it with Mr Clarence Whitehill. He is a wonderful artiste. "Mr Beecham? I consider him to be an ideal conductor of opera. He is so extraordinarily sympathetic, and one can always rely on him. 1 think the way he has staged 'Salome' is wonderful." "Did you design your own dress?" ' 'No; it was designed by Count Sparrc, a great Finnish artist, and it was made by Worth, of Paris. I am a Finn myself, you know, though I have long made Paris my home. "Did you know that the seven veils represent different passions and moods —anger, hatred, jealousy, and so forth? It is a fine idea, is it not?" "Yes, I was delighted with the reception on Thursday. And yet people say Englishmen are cold!"