It’s been several decades since Florent Schmitt’s La Tragédie de Salomé was last presented as a ballet, even as it has been performed in the concert hall quite regularly.  So it is nice to note that the Mariinsky Ballet of St. Petersburg, Russia is including Salomé as part of its 13^th Annual Ballet Festival.

The Mariinsky is also taking the production on tour.

This video clip, courtesy of the Mariinsky Ballet Channel on YouTube, highlights some of the new choreography that has been developed by Emil Faski, danced in rehearsal by Mariinsky company members Victoria Brilyova and Andrei Yermakov.

To my knowledge, the Mariinsky production is the first staging of the ballet since the 1994-95 season, when Salomé was presented in Germany as part of an evening of three ballets (also including Stravinsky’s Petrouchka and Ravel’s Tombeau de Couperin), with choreography by Anthony Taylor.

That German production, mounted at the Theater des Stadt Koblenz, premiered on October 28, 1994 and ran for 16 performances, with the orchestral forces conducted by Marioara Trifan and Christian Letschert-Larsson.

Interestingly, from my research, I believe the last time The Tragedy of Salome was mounted as a ballet production in the city of its origin was back in 1954, mounted by the Paris Opéra. That was the ninth time Parisians had had the opportunity to see the ballet, with earlier productions mounted in 1950, 1944, 1928, 1922, 1919, 1913, 1912 and 1907.

The first production in 1907 was of Schmitt’s original version of the music, danced by Loïe Fuller who, like Isadora Duncan, was famous for her scarves and lighting effects. Schmitt had composed the nearly one-hour score in under three months, drawing quick inspiration from a dramatic scenario conjured up by poet and theater director Robert d’Humières.

The 1907 Salomé was mounted as a “mimed drama.” Writing of the lead dancer’s commanding performance, the French music and drama critic Edmond Stoullig reported:

“All the other persons in the drama dwelt immovable, looking at Mme. Fuller. What could they do otherwise? There was nothing to do except to admire her, mouths agape.”

In her 2015 book Poetics of Dance: Body, Image and Space in the Historical Avant-Gardes, Gabriele Brandstetter noted some of the unique new techniques employed by Fuller in La Tragédie de Salomé:

” … Fuller attemped to combine her own style of lighting technique, which had gained in virtuosity over the years, with the Salomé materials by projecting colored lights onto wide, moving fabric surfaces. [It] was not merely a dramatization of Salome’s dances — as an erotic presentation of the body — but a drama of desire and guilt clothed in phantasmagorical images.

The psychological drama was reflected in elements of the landscape — in cloud formations, the play of light on the Moab mountains, the elements of light and water — as in the moment after Salome’s dance on the palace terrace high above the Dead Sea … including a dance on a panel of glass lighted from below.”

[It bears noting that while audience members were without doubt impressed by Fuller’s lighting concepts, some, such as Harry Graf Kessler, expressed disappointment in her embodiment of Salome, because Fuller did not conform to the image of a slim, lithe dancer.]

The 1907 Salomé was mounted at the Théâtre des Arts in Paris, a smallish performance space that was unable to accommodate an orchestra of more than 20 musicians. Despite the production constraints he faced, Schmitt managed to create a score that is highly effective, even as he must have chafed at the inability to employ his masterful orchestration skills.

Indeed, Schmitt was forced to confine himself to using merely a quintet of strings, a flute, an oboe/English horn, a clarinet, a bassoon, a trumpet, two horns and two trombones, along with harp and limited percussion.

Musicologist and Schmitt biographer Catherine Lorent has written the following about the original version of the Salomé score:

“In spite of the small number of players, [Florent Schmitt] was able to draw from his orchestra astonishing effects … His orchestral commentary, tense and concentrated, quivers with inner life – vibrant in its passion. With an astonishing firmness of style and an incontestable rhythmic force, the composer has translated both the subtleties and brutalities inherent in the poetic text.”

You can sample how effective Schmitt’s scoring sounds in this excerpt from a 1991 Marco Polo recording made of the 1907 original version, with Patrick Davin conducting members of the Rheinland-Pfalz State Philharmonic, courtesy of YouTube.

The 1907 production of La Tragédie de Salomé turned out to be one of the principal artistic events of the Paris season, receiving more than 50 performances (conducted by the then-very young Désiré-Emile Inghelbrecht).

The critics were glowing in their praise of the choreography and the music. The comments of Henri Gauthier-Villars were representative, who spoke of a “sumptuous symphony that shimmers around” the principal dancer.

But understandably, Schmitt wanted to find a way to give his music fresh light – and added “oomph” – when he prepared another version of the score three years later. Schmitt’s new version expanded the orchestra to full symphonic forces even as it reduced the number of tableaux from six dances to three.

The composition that resulted, now closer to 30 minutes in length, has been the one used to revive the ballet in subsequent years.

La Tragédie de Salomé was included in a memorable evening of ballet on April 22, 1912, sharing billing alongside La Péri by Paul Dukas, Istar by Vincent d’Indy and Adélaïde, ou le langage des fleurs (better known to music-lovers as Valses Nobles et Sentimentales) by Maurice Ravel, which the composer had orchestrated from the original piano score expressly for Trouhanova’s program. 

This production of Salomé featured Natasha (Natalia) Trouhanova in the starring role.  Maxime Dethomas was the set designer, while the composer himself directed the Lamoureux Orchestra.  (Each of the other three ballets was conducted by their respective composers as well.)  The gala program was repeated on April 23, 25 and 27.

Hard on the heels of the 1912 presentation of La Tragédie de Salomé was a Ballet Russes production mounted by Serge Diaghilev the following year, featuring choreography by Boris Georgevich Romanof and the prima ballerina Tamara Karsavina cast in the starring role, with decor by Serge Soudeikin and Pierre Monteux directing the orchestral forces. The Ballet Russes production was slated for 26 performances over the season.

That 1913 production, which was staged in both Paris and London, was the topic of a feature spread in Comœdia Illustré, the leading theatre magazine in Paris at the time, which also presented photos of a bejeweled Karsavina along with colorfully costumed Nubian guards. The curtain and costume designs were created by Serge Sudeikine — the first time Diaghilev had turned to a Russian artist outside the Mir Iskusstva (World of Art) circle (Bakst, Benois, Golovin, Roerich) — and the choreography was prepared by Boris Romanov, his only work for Diaghilev. Leon Bakst was responsible for the sumptuous set design.

In addition to presenting the work in Paris and London, the Ballets Russes included La Tragédie de Salomé as part of the repertoire it took on its 1913 tour of South America, where the ballet was mounted in Montevideo, Uruguay and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Composer-conductor Rhené-Baton conducted those performances.

In 1919, the Paris Opéra staged a new production of Salomé featuring the famed dancer and dramatic actress Ida Rubinstein — a production that was also taken on tour to Madrid and Barcelona, Spain in December of that year. Dancing alongside Rubinstein were Georges Wagne as Herod and Christine Herx as Herodias.

A 1922 Paris revival of the ballet starred Yvonne Daunt in the principal role.

The ballet was revived again in 1928 with Olga Spessivtseva. (Interestingly, the 1928-29 Paris Opéra staging was part of the double-bill that also included Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s 1908 orientalist opera Le Coq d’or.) In his book The Sleeping Ballerina, Anton Dolin provided these notes of Mlle. Spessivtseva’s portrayal of the heroine:

“Few felt that the role of Salomé would suit the classic Olga, either in style or dance. Yet it was perhaps one of her most successful creations. The memory of her pale face, her jet-black hair and ecstatic expression … will be be remembered by all who witnessed her performance.”

In his 1984 book The Great Russian Dancers, author Gennady Smakov contended that Spessivtseva’s portrayal of Salomé was “quite successful … although she could not surprass Ida Rubinstein, for whom [the production] had been designed.”

The last time the ballet has been seen in Paris was in December 1954, when the Paris Opéra mounted the ballet featuring Lycette Darsonval in the title role. (The choreography and staging by Albert Aveline was the same that had been used at a 1944 Paris mounting of the ballet starring Suzanne Lorcia.) In addition to praising the expressiveness of Darsonval’s interpretation of the role, critics singled out supporting dancer Paulette Dynalix, with the 1956 Ballet Annual noting that she “obtains the maximum effect with the simplest gesture — the hallmark of a good mime.”

Writing in the December 30, 1954 issue of Le Figaro under the nom de plume “Clarendon”, organist and musicologist Bernard Gavoty spoke of Schmitt’s score in glowing terms:

“It matters little that La Tragédie de Salomé is forty-seven years old, since it has no age, in the very best sense of the term. Everything that taste, craft, tragic force, invention, opulence and sensuality can dictate to a musician is found under the pen of Schmitt — so rich and prodigal that one imagines, when listening to his work, a sultan throwing forth his gold by the handful.

Decidedly, there is no musical genius without harmonic discovery: the spirit of combination, the laborious counterpoint, the obstinate developments — all the greyness of the world pales next to the river of diamonds that is represented by a chain of sumptuous chords. Listen to La Tragédie de Salomé at the Opéra: it is precious stones, solitaires, sparkling finery — truly a sultan’s treasure, I tell you!”

Considering the impressive roster of ballerina stars who took up the Salome role in its early years – along with the dramatic potential the score to Salomé offers – its disappearance from the Parisian ballet repertoire after 1954 seems somewhat odd.

What about America? In my research, I’ve discovered that the first staged production of La Tragédie de Salomé in the United States didn’t happen until January 1932, when it was introduced to New York City audiences in a production mounted at the Grand Street Playouse. The producer of the show was Lisa Parnova, who also danced the title role alongside Gertrude Prokosch (Herodias), J. Blake Scott (Herod), Josef Castle (John the Baptist) and a corps de ballet of some 25 dancers. According to a January 30, 1932 news report in the New York Times, Florent Schmitt’s piano reduction score was performed by Grace Castagnetta, a noted arranger and pianist.

In Rome, La Tragédie de Salomé was introduced by the Italian Ballet in November 1923, produced by  choreographer and ballet master Nicola Guerra. Guerra was a noted dance artist whose career took him to the Vienna State Opera in the late 1800s. He directed the ballet of the Budapest Opera from 1902 until the entry of Italy into World War I in 1915. Guerra was also a ballet director at the Paris Opéra in the 1920s.

In Germany, there was a postwar staging of Salomé at the Prinzregenten Theater in Munich. The Christian Science Monitor reported on that production in the March 6, 1954 issue of the paper as follows:

“Four dissimilar types of music and movement are created in the dances evolved — namely, that of John the Baptist, with preaching gestures; of Herod, completely abandoned to sensual desires; of Herodias, filled with hatred and malice; and of Salome, vacillating between sensuality and the yearning for redemption. At least this is how Pia and Pino Mlakar produced it in Munich — in a purely expressionistic manner. Among the performers, only Natasha Trofimova was thoroughly convincing; her playing of Salome’s delirious closing scene, in particularl, was magnificent.”

The Dance Encyclopedia, authored by Anatole Chujoy and published in 1967, references one other German production of La Tragédie de Salomé; choreographed by Manfred Taubert, it was broadcast on October 20, 1959 by German Television.

The film was directed by Ekkehard Böhmer and the dancers included Gisela Deege as Salome, Wolfgang Leissner as Herod, Tana Herzberg as Herodias, and Taubert himself portraying the role of John the Baptist.

The Dance Encyclopedia also lists a 1953 Zagreb Ballet staging of the ballet, featuring choreography by the Yugoslav dancer Nenad Lhotka.

But considering how few stagings of the ballet have been mounted in the past 75 years, it is welcome news to see this new Mariinsky production unfold.  And with the Salomé being taken on tour this year, perhaps it will lead to more widespread interest and revival of a work that deserves to be seen on the stage as much as it’s heard in the concert hall.

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Update:  The Mariinsky Ballet’s production of La Tragédie de Salomé premiered in Russia in 2013, followed by stagings outside the country.

It was taken to Italy in 2013 (to Trieste, where it was performed at the Teatro Verdi), where it received glowing reviews.  The Italian arts critic Alberto Godas noted the “original and powerful choreography of Emil Faski,” and also reported on the production and staging “creating a magical atmosphere.”

In addition, a video has been uploaded recently on the Mariinsky’s YouTube channel featuring choreographer Emil Faski talking about his realization of the ballet, accompanied by a presentation of stage production excerpts.