A Musical and Psychological Approach to the Opera Salome by Strauss

Abstract

Strauss is a composer of the late Romantic era, which is not so long ago and consists of the years from mid-1800’s to the early 1900’s. He retold the story of Salome written by Wilde, shocking the opera audience from its first appearance. The opera consists of the Christian biblical theme and is a murderous and erotic version of it. It questions the traditional cultural values of its day in a modern way through innovative use of music and reinterpretation. While composing his operas, Strauss took the splendor of the epics of Wagner and combined it with the emotions of the short Italian verismo opera style. In this study, the opera Salome is analyzed through a musical and psychological approach. According to research and analysis, it is seen that Salome’s music includes leitmotifs, short melodies with symbolic and rich meanings. They are associated with characters such as Salome and John the Baptist. The usage of leitmotifs by Strauss is complex with both uncertainty and symbolism. Besides leitmotifs, the opera’s music includes many symbolic uses of musical color. Moreover, Salome’s harmony uses polytonality, chromaticism, unusual modulations, and ambiguous tones. Some of the major characters and major psychological themes have keys associated with them. With a psychological approach, it is pointed out that Salome is a wicked and greedy adolescent who wants to get whatever she wants immediately. She has obsessive-compulsive disorder tendency as well as being a “femme fatale”. Her family background is also very immoral and unhealthy; his uncle killing her father and marrying her mother. All these negative issues contribute to her rotten personality.