"Here then, brought most vividly and excitingly into our homes is this extraordinary opera of obsession. The Page, in hero-worshipping adoration of Narraboth, he desirous of Salome, Herod frenetically so, Herodias hungry for any man that takes her fancy but never appeased, Salome having no use for Captains of the Guard, or any of the men a Princess of Judea could summon with a flick of a finger. She is out for big game, a chaste man, young and beautiful and holy, that is the man she must and will have. Such is the ignoble opera that nevertheless remains—if you like— so perversely fascinating." - The Gramophone, 1962
Georg Solti's fabulous 1961 recording of Richard Strauss's opera Salome with Birgit Nilsson in the title role, accompanied by the Vienna Philharmonic, gets the Pristine Classic Opera treatment this week, bringing out the very best from this seminal Decca recording.
It's coupled with Solti's earlier outing for DG, forty-five minutes of the best of Strauss's Elektra, recorded in 1952 and featuring Christel Goltz, Elisabeth Höngen and Ferdinand Frantz, newly restored and remastered in XR Ambient Stereo for Pristine by Andrew Rose. Together they're unmissable!