Salome begins - Strauss and Wilde unwound at Ghent Festival, Belgium
OperaUpClose are creating a live dialogue between the established and the contemporary and July marked the first step in our journey with Salome. Partnering with the brilliant Broder, earlier this month we held a series of workshops at the intimate, waterside Arca Theater as part of Ghent Festival 2025, bringing together artists and audiences in a thrilling early exploration of our reinvention of Strauss’ Salome. Artistic Director at OperaUpClose, Flora McIntosh who was involved in the workshops, said:
“Thanks to the brilliant Broder for partnering with OperaUpClose to workshop ideas for a Wilde new take on Strauss’ Salome. What a pleasure and a privilege to be at the beautiful Arca Theatre in Ghent with a team of truly exceptional women, diving deep into music, language, psychology and heritage. An intense and exhilarating few days culminated in a live sharing and discussion—the opening event in Broder’s 10 Wilde Nights season, part of the genuinely wild Gentse Feesten 2025. We can’t wait to share more as this thrilling project unfolds.”
The intention of the workshops were to take the very first steps towards an entirely new English language libretto inspired by Oscar Wilde’s original play, Salome. We explored themes of gender identity and power in the text, and experimented with a bold new electronic and acoustic sound world.
This process was led by a visionary team of women artists:
Writer/Dramaturg: Toria Banks
Director: Anna Morrissey
Composer: Phoenix Rousiamanis
Writer: Athena Stevens (joined virtually from the U.S.)
Salome is part of our programme, The Reinventions. A series of three one-act operas reimagined for the modern world in thrilling new chamber orchestrations by some of the UK’s most exciting composers and writers. You can view the full trailer here:
We’re grateful to the Arca Theater and Ghent Festival for hosting these workshops and to BRODER for their invaluable input and passion to the early development of this project. We look forward to launching the production page for Salome very soon, in the meantime if you have any questions or want to know more about the project, please feel free to get in touch.