Strauss: Salome (Live 2-SACD) – Emily Magee, Peter Bronder

Composer: Richard Strauss
Artists: Emily Magee, Peter Bronder, Michaela Schuster, Wolfgang Koch, Benjamin Bruns, Claude Eichenberger, Frankfurt Radio Symphony
Conductor: Andrés Orozco-Estrada
Number of Discs: 2
Label: Pentatone
Release Date: October 16, 2017

From the 2018 Gramophone Awards Shortlist:

Desire. Brutality. Lust. Slyness. Anxiety. What a fascinatingly menacing thematic mélange is seething in this Salome. Richard Strauss, the nervous contrapuntalist, had immediately recognized the potential of Oscar Wilde’s play, and had proceeded to add to it a musical meta-plane, which resulted in Salome becoming the scandalous new point of departure for opera in the 20th century. 

This live recording of a concert given on September 10, 2016, features the young, up-and-coming conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada leading the Frankfurt Radio Symphony. Orozco-Estrada surrounded his Salome with outstanding soloists of the German opera repertoire: Wolfgang Koch (Jochanaan), Peter Bronder (Herod), and Michaela Schuster (Herodias). The American soprano Emily Magee has developed into a true Strauss specialist and not only in this role. The Frankfurter Rundschau praised her readily appealing, powerful and untiring soprano voice.

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