Review by Liz Eichler
The first production in this year’s Summer Opera Festival at Cincinnati Opera was Salome, an opera that shocked audiences and was banned in several cities when it premiered in1905. Presented June 18 and 20, 2026, it served as the opening statement of a Summer Opera Festival that has quietly become one of Cincinnati’s most welcoming cultural events. With multiple productions, pre-show lectures, Young Professionals Choral Collective (YPCC) lobby performances, and intimate studio sessions, the Festival is more than a series of shows—it is an invitation to broaden your arts journey.
Before even stepping into Strauss’s searing score, an evening at the Opera begins with a must-attend offering: the pre-show lecture in Corbett Tower. Evans Mirageas, Artistic Director, and guest such as James Maverick, Head of Music, and an appearance by Oscar Wilde himself (portrayed by local professional actor Douglas Fries), framed the opera with wit, history, and clarity.
We heard about Salome composer Richard Strauss conducting here at Cincinnati Music Hall in 1904 while working on the opera. “Oscar Wilde” shared that the play was written for the incomparable French actress Sarah Bernhardt, for whom Wilde originally envisioned the role.
Maverick explained the leitmotifs of the work, the recurring music that accompanies each character, and played them for us. I recognized many during the performance.
We are also reminded that Salome is pronounced “ZAH-loh-may,” and that its reception was both explosive and divisive—wildly successful in its premiere in Dresden, but banned in many places, pulled from the lineup after one performance at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 1907, and not produced there again until 1934, according to Mirageas.
From the start, the lecture sharpens our understanding of an opera that is still provocative more than a century after its premiere. Salome retains its ability to unsettle, confronting audiences with desire, power, religion, and violence in ways that remain startlingly modern.
A Ruling Family Without Boundaries
Salome opens fast. At the center of the production is a world where boundaries barely exist for some, but are solid for others. Salome enters the courtyard, in the middle of dinner, not bound by social etiquette. She’s a teenage princess, shaped by privilege–and trauma. Hanging with the guards she becomes fixated on the imprisoned prophet Jochanaan (John the Baptist), whose rejection of her desire spirals into obsession and violence. Her demand for his head, granted by her stepfather Herod, becomes one of opera’s most chilling final acts.
But what makes this production particularly compelling is how Salome remains on stage—rarely removed from the psychological and physical landscape she is unraveling.
Design: A World Built on Symbol and Space
So much is accomplished with so little in Tim Wallace’s stage and properties design. The backdrop is an acoustic grid of textured blocks at varying levels, creating a fractured architectural world. Through a large window, the full moon appears—watching, growing, leaning in, a character in its own right.
Upstage levels allow for fluid entrances and exits of guards, while also giving Salome space to rush, climb, and collapse through the architecture the way a rambunctious teenager would. House right, a small domestic but opulent sitting area suggests a corner of distorted “normalcy,” a reminder of the palace’s false comfort. The fixture above is fascinating–a giant disco-ball with midcentury modern spikes, then it lands–it is the sun.
Thomas C. Hase’s lighting design washes the stage in deep rich tones of emerald, ruby, amber and amethyst, shifting emotional temperature and supporting the storytelling.
Costumes by Anita Yavich are also rich in jewel tones and symbolic clarity: Salome in ruby red and pearl, Jochanaan in restrained white, Herod and Herodias in royal purple and gold. The clothing adds to the storytelling—Herodias is elongated and fluid in silk, topped by a tall crown. Herod appears shorter and constrained beneath his circlet crown, his clothing not as rich, signaling the imbalance of their relationship.
Together, the design creates a world where the moon exists outside the palace while the palace behaves as though it is the center of the entire universe. Herod even directs the guards “Hide the moon! Hide the stars!”
Direction: Movement as Psychology
Under the direction of José Maria Condemi, Salome herself is constantly in motion—snakelike, restless, circling Jochanaan, collapsing into space and then surging forward again. One of the most striking moments is her physical interaction with him, moving around his body with an almost gravitational pull, while the surrounding drama—especially Narraboth’s unfolding ethical struggle—continues unnoticed. Later, for at least fifteen minutes she is onstage, quietly obsessed with his blindfold cloth, while the action continues. The staging leaves little doubt about the intensity of Salome’s desire, emphasizing both her sexual awakening and her growing obsession. Her overt sensuality would have been unthinkable for many audiences at the turn of the twentieth century.
There is also unexpected humor threaded through Herod (Chad Shelton), Herodias (Michelle DeYoung), and the argumentative chorus of Jews, which offsets the opera’s darker psychological weight without diminishing it.
The “memory ballet” substitution for the Dance of the Seven Veils is conceptually interesting, reframing Salome’s behavior as the result of trauma and early violation rather than pure seduction or madness. While thematically coherent, it does slightly lessen the dramatic impact of the moment for me, even as it deepens the psychological framing. Choreographer Erina Noda expertly guides the ballet and the young dancers Sydney Caggiano and Amanda Perez Duarte.
Stage Manager Jennifer Shaw keeps all the moving parts together backstage.
Amazing Performances
Kathryn Lewek delivers a Salome that is mercurial—flirtatious, ecstatic, entranced, commanding, and childlike, often within the same breath. She is not simply seductive or monstrous; she is unstable in a way that feels almost cosmically unmoored, as though the world itself shifts with her attention. Her dramatic soprano voice is breathtaking, mesmerizing. She delivers her passion for Jochanaan (his body, his hair, etc.) and then her immediate disdain, with both the skill of a trained soprano and the petulance of a child. One can see why Oscar Wilde penned the role for Sarah Bernhardt in his original one-act–it is a tour de force, befitting a great tragedienne.
Alfred Walker’s Jochanaan is immovable, a moral center that refuses to bend even as everything around him collapses. His rich baritone grounds the production. We see why Herod is afraid of him. Zach Borichevsky’s Narraboth is quietly devastating, his devotion collapsing into despair in a tragedy that unfolds in parallel to Salome’s growing obsession with Jochanaan. His tenor is strong, bright and focused. Both Walker and Borichevsky leave such strong impressions that I found myself wishing they had even more stage time.
The Page (Emily Cotten) provides a beautifully restrained emotional counterpoint. Her grief and concern for Narraboth provide some of the opera’s most human moments. Her mezzo as well as her acting abilities make the Page’s struggle compelling.
Chad Shelton’s Herod balances comic unease with genuine instability, while Michelle DeYoung’s Herodias anchors the palace with authority and sharp presence. He captures the humor in the tenor role.
DeYoung has some quiet yet defining moments, including sitting on the couch smoking, while Salome is confronting Herod. DeYoung’s dramatic mezzo captures the character’s narcissism, independence, and ambition to protect herself and her reputation.
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Shines
Under Robert Spano’s baton, Strauss’s massive score unfolds remarkably with clarity and control. The orchestra captures the sensuality, playfulness and brutality of the music, allowing individual instrumental colors to emerge even during the work’s most explosive passages. At no time did it overwhelm the singers. The arrangement held true to James Maverick’s pre-show advice–listen for the themes that accompany each main character, and how they interplay throughout the show.
Final Reflection: A Festival That Welcomes You In
More than anything, Salome works as an opening chapter for the Summer Opera Festival itself. This is not just a season of performances; it is a demonstration of what meaningful audience engagement can look like.
From the pre-show lectures to YPCC performances on the second-floor lobby, from Studio Sessions in Wilks Studio to a full slate of productions including Lalovavi (a world premiere), Carmen, and Orpheus and Eurydice, the festival is built around access as much as artistry.
Here in Cincinnati, opera is not locked behind expertise or tradition. It is open, conversational, and alive—something you can enter even if you never studied it, even if you are encountering it for the first time.
It was Cincinnati Opera that turned me into an opera lover. Over the years, I have brought friends, my husband, my musical theatre daughters and my skeptical sons. Their reaction was simple: opera wasn’t nearly as intimidating as they expected. One of them described it as “musical theatre where people spend more time singing about what they’re feeling.” Not a bad introduction to the art form.
Get Tickets to Cincinnati Opera Summer Festival 2026
If Salome demonstrated anything, it is that Cincinnati Opera is committed to making opera accessible without sacrificing artistic ambition.
Whether you choose Carmen, the world premiere of Lalovavi, or Orpheus and Eurydice, arrive early, attend the lecture, and allow yourself time to experience the festival beyond the performance itself.
Cincinnati Opera has created something increasingly rare: a place where newcomers and longtime opera lovers can sit side by side, learn together, and share in an art form that remains as powerful today as it was more than a century ago.
Go to the Cincinnati Opera website for more information. Tickets begin at $16.
