Words, Women and Song: The Fatality of desire in Strauss's and Wilde's
Salomé
AHRC centre for Cultural Analysis, Theory and History & Opera North
20 January 2006, Leeds City Art Gallery
No figure more completely encapsulates the ambivalence and luxuriance of
late nineteenth century Europe's obsession with the fatal dangers of sexual
desire than Salomé - a figure enlarged by artists, poets, and composers from
the slight reference in the Christian gospels to a dancing girl to become
the very epitome of the femme fatale. Drenched in Orientalist fantasy that
projected an unbridled sexuality onto both Jewish and Middle Eastern Others,
Salomé ( notably in images by painter Gustave Moreau) became for Oscar Wilde
a means of exploring desires that could not be openly visualised. Made
infamous by Aubrey Beardsley's transgressive illustrations, Wilde's play,
written for the great Sarah Bernhardt to perform the title role despite her
advanced age, inspired Richard Strauss' 1909 opera. This half-day of talks
by musciologists, theatre scholars and art historians aims to explore the
knot of meanings held in word, image and song surrounding this most
modernist of mythical fatal of desiring beings: Wilde's and Strauss' Salomé.
Speakers: Professor Peter Franklin, University of Oxford; Professor Stephen
Bottom, University of Leeds; Professor Griselda Pollock, University of Leeds
Attached is a leaflet including the programme and a booking form. You can
also visit our website @ http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cath
Josine Opmeer
Centre Coordinator
AHRC Centre for Cultural Analysis, Theory and History
Old Mining Building, 2.08
University of Leeds, LEEDS LS2 9JT
Tel: +44 (0)113 343 1629
Fax: +44 (0)113 343 1628
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
web: http: <<RegistrationformSalome.doc>> //www.leeds.ac.uk/cath
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