Director Klaus Gus, wearing a scarf and coat, was pacing the Metropolitan Opera's frigid auditorium during a recent rehearsal for Strauss' Salome. It was just a few days before the opening night and he was optimistic.
“New York can bring you to huge, beautiful energy,” he said. “It's adrenaline. It's not a stressful feeling, it's a feeling of being alive.”
Born in Germany and spent most of his European career, Guth, 61, was praised for his experimental and rigorous approach to operas old and new. Now he brings those sensibilities to his Met debut, directing a new production for “Salome” which will open on Tuesday.
Inspired in part by Stanley Kubrick's film Eyes Wide Shut, Guth imbued the psychological thriller elements with opera, a decadent retelling adaptation of Oscar Wilde's biblical story. The dignified figure roams in a rum mask in the black and white stage. A naked woman appears and disappears. The girl pulls out her arms and wakes up the doll's hair with strokes before stroking hard against the ground.
Gus said he wanted to highlight the choking rules of Victorian society depicted in the Wild play. He tells the backstory of Salome, King Herod's 16-year-old princess and stepdaughter, depicting her as a victim of abuse and trauma that gets engrossed in John the Baptist, and ultimately demands his head.
“I wanted to make this strict system possible, the invisible lines around what is not permitted and what is not permitted,” Gus said. “It's a portrait of a young woman who grew up in this world, and their strange rules are trapped in a family prison.”
“Salome” is one of the most emotionally recharged and demanding works in opera. For Guth's staging, Met lined up the soprano Elsa Vanden Haber in the title role. Baritone Peter Matthey as the Baptist John (known as Jochanaan in the Opera). and Tenor Gerhard Siegel as King Herod. Conducted by Met's music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
Guth's Met's debut is a bit behind his career, but that's the beginning of a long-term relationship with the company. In future seasons, Met will import 2023 staging of Handel's opera oretrio “Semele,” a co-produced with the Bavarian national opera in 2023, and production of Janasek's “Jenufa,” which premiered in London in 2021 at the Royal Ballet and Opera.
Met's general manager Peter Gelb described Guth as one of Europe's most inventive directors, saying that his “consistent storytelling commitment” made him stand out.
“The more original it is, the more wonderful it is, but not many directors can tell the story in a way that doesn't require a guidebook to understand what you're seeing,” Gelb said.
Gus was born in Frankfurt and grew up in what he described as a “quiet and wealthy environment.” As a child, he dabbled in Super 8 movies, but he felt he was not exposed to the rough reality of life. He moved to Munich for university, studying philosophy, literature and theater, and dreaming of becoming a film director.
In his 20s, he had an inspiration about opera while working as a camera assistant at a production at Bailloth, a German festival founded by Wagner nearly 150 years ago. In this art form, Gus saw how he combines his interest in music, theater and visual arts.
“All of a sudden I clicked,” he said. “My passion has been put together.”
He quickly rose to the European theatre scene with the famous staging of modern operas such as Lucia Novelio's “Cronaca del Lugo” at the 1999 Salzburg Festival.
When Gelb approached Guth about staging the new “Salome”, he was already producing under his belt in the German campaign in Berlin. But Guth wanted to create something completely different for his Met debut.
“It's boring to do the same thing,” he said. “There's a risk.”
Met's “Salome” was originally planned to be a collaboration with the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. It premiered in 2021.
For his “Salome”, Gus said, he wanted to give the character in the title an agency feel – showing that she “is not just about her education dolls and products.”
“It's a biography of Salome – the development of the young man,” he said. “I was looking for something that everyone could connect with.”
Nézet-Séguin said Guth has reinforced “Salome” by shedding light on the abuse of children and vulnerable people. “He was able to highlight the stories he really told in our time,” Nezette Seguin said, “without damaging the opera at all.”
One of the defining scenes of the opera, the seven veil dances are often portrayed like strips. But in Guth's version, Dance is a moment of calculation as seven versions of Salome, including Van Den Heever, portray the horrors of her upbringing.
Van den Haver said that Gus created “a fragmented mind, a dance of the subconscious.”
As “a six-foot-high person that should have been in a 16-year-old body,” Vanden Haber said she initially found it difficult to live in the character. However, she said it was helped by Gus's clear vision of opera and her emphasis on her work as an ensemble.
“You're always part of a bigger story,” she said. “You're part of a tableau, part of a painting.”
In the recent Met lobby, Gus headed for a rehearsal after getting into the morning sun. He doesn't work for the Met, but he's not a stranger to New York. In 2023 he took a show called “Doppelganger” to Park Avenue Armory, and staged Schubert's “Schwanengesang” like a soldier's hospital dream.
He first came across Met in the 1980s when he came to New York for an internship at CBS. At the time, he broke as a young man to the traditional and flashy appearance of several productions. However, he finds himself drawn to music. Decades later, he appreciates the energy and focus of Met singers, orchestra players, staff and crew.
“The Met is huge, but sometimes it feels very intimate,” he said. “I feel immeasurable joy and gratitude. I feel at home.”
