Gerald Barry’s Salome tickets

In seasons past, the LA Phil premiered two of Gerald Barry’s daring operas, and now Thomas Adès leads the US premiere of Barry’s Salome.

The opera is based on Oscar Wilde’s play Salome, with deviations from the original. Just as surreal as Barry’s other Wilde-inspired opera, The Importance of Being Earnest, Salome belongs to the fantastical world of his Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, based on the Lewis Carroll text. Both operas share madness, ecstasy, humor, and murder.

Salome is an opera of voyeurism, the moon, French, God, punishment of sin, misunderstanding, sex, the metronome, suicide, hysteria, hunger, blood, typing, speaking correctly, sterility, The Blue Danube, the wind, fever, art, Wilde, dreaming, beheading, Frankenstein, and kissing.

In this production, soprano Alison Scherzer portrays Salome, the typist who agrees to transcribe Wilde’s letter “De Profundis” as dictated by the king.