Mattila and Uusitalo's Salome great success at Metropolitan Opera

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The premiere of Richard Strauss’s Salome, starring bass-baritone Juha Uusitalo and soprano Karita Mattila at the Metropolitan Opera on September 23rd was a huge success for the Finns, even though the conducting début of Mikko Franck, the Finnish National Opera’s General Music Director, had to be cancelled because of illness.
      The new modern dress production was directed by German Jürgen Flimm and conducted by Patrick Summers, the Music Director of the Houston Grand Opera. Summers was called in at the eleventh hour to replace the indisposed Franck.
     
Finnish bass-baritone Juha Uusitalo made his Met début as Jochanaan (John the Baptist), meeting with delighted and appreciative applause.
      However, one role in this opera is above all others: Salome, who according to the composer should be a princess of 16 with the voice of a heavyweight Wagner singer.
     
The impossible comes true in the 48-year-old Karita Mattila, who has shown herself to be brilliant in the role of an adolescent girl who becomes a bloodthirsty monster in human flesh.
      Soprano Karita Mattila’s stunning performance in the title role was met with vigorous applause and made the audience gasp in admiration, just as it had when she first sang it on the Met stage four years ago.
      The boldest thing in Karita Mattila’s performance was not Doug Varone’s successful choreography for the famous Dance of the Seven Veils scene, but the emotional final scene when she held Jochanaan’s head in her hands, yearning for him while at the same time ridiculing him, just before kissing his head.
      In her role, Mattila uses a broad spectrum of resources with stunning intensity. By any standards the part is a tour de force, and one she seems to have been particularly gifted to take on.
     
The 111th performance by the Finnish soprano at the Met was a total triumph, and the reviews for Mattila have been universally positive.
      Particularly incandescent were the words of the New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini, who wrote:
      "This is Ms. Mattila’s show. In the punishing final scene, some 15 minutes of musically voluptuous necrophilia, when Salome kisses Jochanaan’s severed head, Ms. Mattila looked and sounded possessed. Even more shocking than her bursts of orgasmic vocal intensity were her lyrical passages, infused with unabashed romantic longing".
      "Vocally Mattila is born to this daunting role, singing with an eerie combination of cool Nordic colorings and raw power. She can spin a Straussian melodic line with sumptuous lyricism. But when Salome erupts in a spasm of twisted desire or childish petulance, Ms. Mattila unleashes chilling, hard-edged top notes that slice through Strauss's king-size orchestra".


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Juha Uusitalo and Karita Mattila performing Salome at Metropolitan Opera (23.9.2008)
  Mikko Franck´s Metropolitan debut on hold through illness (17.9.2008)

Links:
  New York Times review
  Metropolitan Opera

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