From ‘Killing Beauty’ (Shā Lè Měi) to ‘Killing Me’: On the North American Premiere of McVicar’s Salome

By Elizabeth Jia

Before attending the dress rehearsal of Salome at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, I had braced myself. Having been forewarned that the opera isn’t exactly “easy on the ears,” I had playfully pre-translated its title using a Chinese pun. The standard Chinese transliteration of Salome is “莎乐美” (Shā Lè Měi). By shifting the tones and characters slightly, it becomes “杀了美” (Shāle Měi), which literally means “Killing Beauty”—a fitting jab at my anticipated aural assault. Yet, before the final curtain fell, I changed my mind. This overwhelming production felt less like a commentary on beauty and more like a visceral experience; the title morphed in my mind to the English phrase “Killing Me.”

The synopsis in the program runs for several dense pages, but this relatively compact opera, spanning just over an hour, conveys a deceptively simple truth: if a woman wants to kiss a man, just let her. Then, there truly would be no “what comes next.” All the ensuing bloodshed, philosophical quandaries, and theological entanglements could have been neatly avoided.

A Magnificent “Failed Pick-up”

The soprano’s longest aria in the entire opera is arguably history’s most spectacularly ineffective attempt at flirtation and a solicited kiss. Princess Salome exhausts her entire lexicon, launching into a breathless, obsessive litany: “Your body is white. It is white like lilies. No meadow has ever been touched… Your body is horribly white… like snow in the mountains of Judaea.” “Your hair is black… black like the night. Your hair is terrible black… Let me touch it.” (A multitude of similarly raw, repetitive entreaties omitted here). This magnificent monologue of unrequited obsession, however, is met with nothing but a relentless, incantatory rejection from “the Prophet” Jochanaan, complete with a complimentary package of curses. The sheer, escalating dissonance of their exchange — her fragmented, sensual poetry crashing against his monolithic, divine denunciations — drew waves of understanding laughter from the audience.

The root of the tragedy lies in their utterly incompatible systems of language. Salome’s language is sensual, aesthetic, and personal. She uses imagery from all the world’s beauties (wine, lilies, snow, roses…) to worship a concrete incarnation she desires to possess. Jochanaan’s language is religious, moral, and grand. He invokes Babylon, Sodom, and theological damnation to defend an abstract, inviolable “holiness.” This fundamental disconnect ensures that the cycle of “temptation” and “rejection” generates no communication, instead building pressure through opposition until it snaps.

The Stubborn “No,” and the Space of the “Seven Veils”

It is precisely this stubborn “you-shall-not-kiss-me” stance that drives the plot over the cliff. Of course, it is abetted by an enabling mother and a stepfather, Herod, who is guilt-ridden and ultimately permissive.

Personally, I am particularly fond of Richard Strauss’s purely orchestral composition for the “Dance of the Seven Veils.” Amid the dense bombardment of sung text before and after, it provides a masterful pause for breath, a vast space for imagination. In David McVicar’s production, this dance, through a “flashback,” reveals why Salome believes she can get away with anything—the exploitative yet mutually transactional power dynamic with her stepfather, Herod, which supplies the cause of her extreme effect.

This production, set within a claustrophobic space in 1930s Fascist Italy, features notably clever stage transitions. A minor flaw in an otherwise effective set was audible during the "Dance of the Seven Veils": the noise of the shifting doorframes, not entirely masked by the orchestra, was noticeably loud, slightly affecting the audience's experience.

Third from right, Sihao Hu, Lyric debut

Among the cast, Chinese baritone Sihao Hu made a notable Lyric Opera debut in the role of Second Nazarene. Despite the limited scope of the part, he delivered a compelling, dramatically committed performance that certainly builds anticipation for his upcoming appearance in Madama Butterfly.

The Kiss Fulfilled, but What is True Love?

Finally, as Salome accepts the bloody head from the naked executioner, her white gown stained crimson, she at last kisses those cold, bitter lips—and indeed, it is nothing as she imagined.

This Fascist Italian secret chamber ceases to be a mere historical backdrop; it transforms into the ultimate metaphor for all human obsession and the crush of power. Here, absolute power (Herod) fears prophecy, absolute morality (Jochanaan) rejects humanity, and absolute desire (Salome) consumes everything. There are no winners, only mutual ruin.

Therefore, this is not a love story. It is a horror story about “if I can’t have it, I’ll destroy it.” It tells us that when adoration is flatly rejected and desire is harshly cursed, for some, the ultimate form of possessiveness becomes annihilation. To kiss a severed head is her most extreme mockery of Jochanaan’s prophetic identity—you denied me living love, so I will seize absolute, static “possession” from death.

Of course, the modern spectator in me was screaming internally throughout: This is utterly unnecessary! After all, love is only beautiful when it’s a mutual affair.

A Brief Coda

Chicago’s 2026 production of Salome, while set in 1930s Fascist Italy, retains the opera's sharp critique of corrupt power and decadent elites. The staging renders its class hierarchy with painful clarity: the partially obscured, lavish banquet on the top tier represents the pyramid's peak; below lies the dark prison, with powerless, numb bystanders squeezed in between. In this allegory of mutual destruction, that single tremor of genuine fear feels jarringly precious—a final, quiet truth before the deluge.

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For this opera, the bold are advised to give it a try. The more timid may still leave with a whole new perspective on the simple act of “a kiss.”

That perspective finds its ultimate, visceral expression in the final scene. As Salome kisses the severed head, the silent, fully nude presence of the executioner, Naaman, delivers the allegory's most brutal footnote. He is no longer a person but a pure instrument of violence, stripped of all social identity. His naked body—in stark, primal contrast to the opulent silks of the banquet above and the delirious poetry of Salome's ecstasy—becomes the final, reductionist truth. When all the ornate symbols and rhetoric of desire are peeled away, what remains is this cold, physical agent of annihilation. It is no longer merely “Killing Beauty,” but the grinding of every layer of the parable’s hypocrisy and struggle into a single, silent, physical end.