Elza van den Heever’s portrayal of Salome sticks to her when she leaves the Metropolitan Opera for a rented apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
The Axiom Mission 4, or Ax-4, crew will launch aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida no earlier than Spring 2025. From left to right: Tibor Kapu of Hungary, ISRO astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla, former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, and ESA astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland.
Houston-based Axiom Space to set record conducting the most research activities benefiting life on earth, beyond Read full article: Houston-based Axiom Space to set record conducting the most research activities benefiting life on earth, beyond Deanna Merryfield, remembered for her bright smile, love of adventure, and protective nature, as seen in photos from her childhood in Killeen, Texas.‘Time is slipping away’: Killeen family still searching for Deanna Merryfield almost 35 years laterIt's the perfect time to save on fabulous finds that will help you jump start your spring cleaning, keep you ready while on the go and simply make life a little easier.Read full article: Save big on spring essentials with these Insider DealsThis image released by the Metropolitan Opera shows Elza van den Heever, center, in the title role of Strauss's"Salome" in New York on April 21, 2025. This image released by the Metropolitan Opera shows Peter Mattei as Jochanaan, foreground left, and Elza van den Heever in the title role of Strauss's"Salome" in New York on April 21, 2025. This image released by the Metropolitan Opera shows Elza van den Heever, center, in the title role of Strauss's"Salome" in New York on April 21, 2025. – Elza van den Heever’s portrayal of Salome sticks to her when she leaves the Metropolitan Opera for a rented apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. “Every night I wake up with the most disturbing nightmares, just random things that I dream and feel so real,” the South African soprano said. “There’s just a tinge of darkness that’s lying in my subconscious at the moment, and I wake up in a pool of sweat every single night with very, very weird, very strange things that I dream.”Claus Guth’s intense and disturbing production of “Salome” opens Tuesday night and runs through May 24, the Met’s first new staging since 2004 of Strauss’ adaptation of an Oscar Wilde play. The May 17 performance will be televised to theaters worldwide. Based on the biblical story of the Jewish princess who was the daughter of Herodias and stepdaughter of Herod Antipas, “Salome” provoked a scandalous reaction to its 1905 premiere. It is best known for the seductive dance of the seven veils that the princess performs for her lecherous stepfather in exchange for a gift of her choosing: the head of St. John the Baptist on a silver platter.An acclaimed German director making his Met debut at age 61, Guth updates the setting to Victorian time and supplements Salome with six body doubles at various stages of youth, in black velvet dresses with white lace surrounding the neck and black bows. Guth wanted them to resemble organ pipes when standing together. Their blank expressions bring to mind the Grady twins haunting the Overlook Hotel in Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining.”Guth’s staging was first announced by the Met in 2017 as a coproduction with Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre starring Anna Netrebko. It debuted at the Bolshoi in 2021 with Asmik Grigorian, after Netrebko decided the role wasn’t right for her, and was toonly to be pushed back because of the pandemic. Russia's attack on Ukraine prompted the Met to build its own sets. Before Strauss’ opening note, a video of a young Salome is projected as a prerecorded celesta plays, evoking a music box. The set includes a doll, a stuffed animal and a hobby horse. During the dance, a Herod body double wearing a mask mixing ram and human in the style of Picasso pairs with each Salome in ascending age to project stages of abuse that left her irreparably scarred as she collapses. “I definitely view it as fragments of memories that are being reconstructed by a brain that has been abused and tortured,” van den Heever said. “His perversity just overwhelms her. ... You see the way that Herod grooms the first three in particular and how his behavior becomes more violent and more cruel with the last three.” Gerhard Siegel, the actual Herod, watches from a short distance as his lifetime of exploitation is depicted. “What’s happening on stage is revolting, however, the power of it is that the music is just so beautiful it becomes even more beautiful when the actions on stage are more revolting,” Met music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin said. “So that contrast should make people uncomfortable and if we do it right, yes, they should be shocked.”Van den Heever greeted Guth with a hug when rehearsals started last month and told him: “I’ve been looking forward to this for years.” Now 45, she last worked with Guth when he directed her 2008 European debut as Giorgetta in Puccini’s “Il Tabarro” at Oper Frankfurt. “I was 100% in love from the very first moment we worked together. I think we’re a match made in heaven,” she said. “I just remember it being eye-opening, this world of regietheatre. I was scared of it because at the time everybody’s always talking about, quote ‘Eurotrash’ and that scares you because you think, oh my God, what am I going to encounter? And it wasn’t like that at all.”“The first couple of weeks I was really struggling,” she said. “It was hard for me to find my voice within her concept, but once I did, I was 100% and I think the performance speaks for itself. That’s not me being forced to do things that I don’t want to do. That was me 100% in the concept and in the role as she envisioned it and doing it with full confidence and conviction. It was difficult to get there, but once I got there I was extremely proud of the work we did.”“They’re both equally dark and disturbing,” van den Heever said, “except Lydia’s was definitely more a visceral experience, whereas Claus’ is more a psychological experience.”During a climactic scene, Salome pushes over a 250-pound, 7-foot statue that shatters on the stage, creating a dust cloud. Gloria Sun, head of prop at the Met’s construction shop, led four people creating 16 plaster statues filled with burlap -- one gets destroyed during each stage rehearsal and performance. The crew has given each a name, starting with Adam, Benjamin, Cain and Daniel. For opening night, Hamilton gets shattered.At the final dress rehearsal last week, van den Heever was so overcome that her eyes teared when the audience applauded her during the curtain call. “It’s pretty clear that we’re dealing with a very, very messed up situation,” she said. “And it is perverse and it is cruel and it is psychologically very twisted. I think if we leave people comfortable at the end of the show, that means we didn’t do our job very well.” Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.It's the perfect time to save on fabulous finds that will help you jump start your spring cleaning, keep you ready while on the go and simply make life a little easier.Read full article: Save big on spring essentials with these Insider Deals
Lydia Steier Entertainment Yannick Nézet-Séguin Herod Antipas Claus Guth Stanley Kubrick Gerhard Siegel Anna Netrebko Gloria Sun
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Soprano Elza van den Heever has nightmares from her disturbing portrayal of `Salome'Elza van den Heever’s portrayal of Salome sticks to her when she leaves the Metropolitan Opera for a rented apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
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Soprano Elza van den Heever has nightmares from her disturbing portrayal of `Salome'Elza van den Heever’s portrayal of Salome sticks to her when she leaves the Metropolitan Opera for a rented apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
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