Deadly entanglement is the result of unfulfilled desires at a pale moonlit festival of the Jewish tetrarch Herod: The captain Narraboth kills himself because the young princess Salome, Herod's stepdaughter, does not take his crush seriously. She only has feelings for the imprisoned prophet Jochanaan, who only raises his voice in accusation. Tormented by his wife Herodias and caught in an erotic lust for his stepdaughter, Herod unsuspectingly promises Salome that he will fulfill his every wish if she dances for him. In boundless passion for Jochanaan, Salome dances and then demands the Baptist's head as a reward. Herodias enthusiastically cheered and Herod begged in vain to renounce the fulfillment, Salome's will is carried out.
Never before in the history of opera has the combination of uninhibited sensuality and gripping psychology in the smooth transition between perpetrators and victims been expressed so opulently and forcefully as in this one-act play by Richard Strauss based on Oscar Wilde's study of a child-woman who is equally marked by wickedness and innocence. In the absolute concentration on the music, the attentive listener becomes more and more intensely involved in the drama. Central tones of the score, which stand for the shimmering moonlit night, the asceticism of the prophet or the desire of Salome, lie together in semitones in a very small space. The climax is the moment when, to the deep murmur of the double bass, Salome anticipates the killing of Jochanaan, longs for it and demands it again and again in an almost grueling manner: an audio drama,
