Karita Mattila: Salome Final Scene 1/2, Met 2004

Karita Mattila: Salome Final Scene (Met 2004).

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG00tbrMZW8

With Siegfried Jerusalem (Herod), Larissa Diadkova (Herodias), Albert Dohmen (Jochanaan), Matthew Polenzani (Narraboth), Katharine Goeldner (Page). Valery Gergiev conducts the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.

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- There is no sound. I hear nothing.

- Why does he not cry out, this man?

- Ah! if any man sought to kill me, I would cry out, I would struggle, I would not suffer! Strike, strike, Naaman, strike, I tell you!

- No, I hear nothing. There is a silence, a terrible silence! Ah! something has fallen on the ground. I heard something fall.

- It was the sword of the executioner. He is afraid, this slave. He has dropped his sword. He dares not kill him. He is a coward, this slave! Let soldiers be sent.

- Come here. You were the friend of him who is dead, were you not? Well, I tell you, there are not enough dead men. Go to the soldiers and bid them go down and bring me the thing I ask, the thing the Tetrarch has promised me, the thing that is mine.

- Here, soldiers! Get down into this cistern and bring me the head of this man. Tetrarch, Tetrarch, command your soldiers that they bring me the head of Jokanaan.

- Ah! you would not let me kiss your mouth, Jokanaan. Well! I will kiss it now.

- I will bite it with my teeth as one bites a ripe fruit.

- Yes, I will kiss your mouth, Jokanaan. I said it; did I not say it? I said it. Ah! I will kiss it now.

- But why don't you look at me, Jokanaan? Your eyes that were so terrible, so full of rage and scorn, are shut now. Why are they shut?

- Open your eyes! Lift up your eyelids, Jokanaan! Why don't you look at me? Are you afraid of me, Jokanaan, that you won't look at me?

- And your tongue speaks no words, this scarlet viper that spat its venom on me. It is strange, is it not? How is it that the red viper stirs no longer?

- You spoke evil words against me, Salome, daughter of Herodias, Princess of Judea!

- Well, I still live, but you are dead, and your head belongs to me! I can do with it what I will. I can throw it to the dogs and to the birds of the air. That which the dogs leave, the birds of the air shall devour. Ah, Jokanaan, you were beautiful!

- Your body was a column of ivory set upon feet of silver. It was a garden full of doves and lilies of silver. There was nothing in the world so white as your body. There was nothing in the world as black as your hair. In the whole world there was nothing as red as your mouth.

- Your voice was a censer that scattered strange perfumes, and when I looked on you I heard strange music...