Massenet: Hérodiade** Plácido Domingo (John the Baptist), Juan Pons (Herod), Agnes Baltsa (Hérodiade), Nancy Gustafson (Salomé), Ferruccio Furlanetto (Phanuel), Hans Helm (Vitellius), David Calne Johnson (High Priest), Ruben Broitman (A Voice); Chorus and Orchestra of the Wiener Staatsoper/Marcello; Viotti RCA Red Seal 74321-79597-2 (2 CDs: 137:17) [Live recording, Wiener Staatsoper, 12 February 1995] — The train from Paris to Brussels was packed on 19 December 1881—Massenet enthusiasts crammed into compartments, desperate to hear his latest effort. They got their money’s worth. Fifty-five performances in the first season alone.
That’s the kind of success composers dream about, the kind that keeps theaters solvent and publishers happy. Hérodiade occupies a curious position in Massenet’s output, sandwiched between Le Roi de Lahore and the irresistible Manon. It deserves better than its current neglect.
The score teems with invention—not just the familiar Massenet perfume, but something more muscular, more dramatically cogent. He wasn’t interested in Oscar Wilde’s decadent vision (that came later — with Strauss). Here Salomé is virtuous, abandoned as a child by Hérodiade, who has herself become entangled in a forbidden union with Herod.
The libretto’s complications multiply: Herod lusts after Salomé without realizing she’s his wife’s daughter, while Salomé loves John the Baptist, who—being human after all—discovers he has tender feelings for her. No veils shed, no severed head on a platter. Instead, a good girl torn between maternal longing and revulsion, willing to die for the prophet she adores.
The Middle Eastern setting gave Massenet license to explore. And did he ever seize it. The orchestration glitters with exotic harmonies, percussion that evokes temple rituals without descending into orientalist cliché.
Roman marches with brazen fanfares, Jewish choruses burning with zealotry, sacred dances that breathe rather than merely decorate—it’s all there, and Massenet’s theatrical instinct never flags. The score sustains a melodic richness across four acts that would exhaust a lesser composer by intermission. This live 1995 broadcast from the Staatsoper captures something essential: the electricity of performance in the moment, with all its risks.
The engineering is remarkably good—ORF knew what they were doing. You hear the company’s warmth, the chorus’s weight, the rustle of a living theater. Domingo owns this performance.
At this point in his career he could still summon the vocal heft for John the Baptist’s denunciations—and what denunciations they are, vehement without shouting, noble in their stoicism. His confrontations with the royals crackle with moral authority. But listen to how he softens in the scenes with Salomé, how he allows tenderness to creep in while maintaining the prophet’s essential purity.
It’s singing of uncommon intelligence, the kind where technical mastery serves dramatic truth rather than calling attention to itself. Baltsa tears into Hérodiade with relish. She rages, she shreds scenery (one imagines), her jealousy practically scorches the microphone.
Is it over the top? Perhaps. But grand opera demands a certain amplitude of gesture, and Baltsa understands the style.
Her voice retains its dark, smoky quality even in the upper register, and she phrases with the conviction of someone who believes every word. Juan Pons walks a tightrope as Herod—lustful, exasperated, ultimately pathetic. He could easily slip into caricature, but he doesn’t.
The vocal production is secure, the characterization detailed enough to register the king’s progressive desperation as events spiral beyond his control. Nancy Gustafson’s Salomé offers appealing vulnerability, her soprano gleaming in the lyric passages while managing the dramatic weight when required. The conflict between revulsion and need comes through clearly—you believe her dilemma.
Ferruccio Furlanetto lends his burnished bass to Phanuel, the astrologer-philosopher who sees more than he can prevent. The supporting cast is strong throughout, no weak links. Marcello Viotti conducts with theatrical flair and musical sense—he understands that Massenet’s orchestration needs space to breathe, that the exotic colors work best when not overstressed.
The Staatsoper forces respond with commitment; this isn’t routine repertory for them, and the freshness shows. Some ragged ensemble moments, inevitable in live interpretation. A few balances tip awkwardly, though whether that’s staging or engineering is impossible to determine from the album.
No matter. The cumulative impact overwhelms such quibbles. This is music-making that communicates, that grabs you and — well — doesn’t let go until Salomé’s final sacrifice.
Why doesn’t Hérodiade hold the stage more often? The vocal demands are considerable—you need a genuine dramatic tenor for John, a mezzo who can handle Hérodiade’s fury without sounding shrill, a soprano who can project innocence without insipidity. Maybe that’s answer enough.
But recordings like this one—now at midprice — remarkably—make the case for revival. Domingo alone justifies the purchase. The rest is generous bonus.
A gripping account of one of Massenet’s finest achievements, captured in vivid sound with a cast that understands the stakes. Highly recommended.
