Vyhľadávanie
In October the Paris opera house Bastille performed Richard Strauss’s one-act opera Salome under the directorship of Lev Dodin. Mikhail Stronin was the dramaturgist, James Conlon the conductor and the Finnish singer Karita Mattila took the central part. Her blonde, instinctive Salome with childish tics is like a helpless, disturbed little animal. This unexpected interpretation required from the singer more than just the usual traditional operatic performance anticipated by the public. Every evening this incredible Finnish actress literally lives the life of Salome on stage. Her singing and dancing is admirable both technically and emotionally, but she is also a wonderful actress – a combination rarely seen in opera performances. In spite of the rather dull directorship, the absolute honesty of this Scandinavian Salome certainly reached everybody present. No theatrical tricks, total nakedness of acting – literal in the dance with the veil.
However, the Finnish opera „alien“ and Oscar Wilde’s famous play reminded me of a different Salome, the monodrama written by Jana Juráňová and performed by the actress Jana Bittnerová for whom the author wrote this play shortly before the Velvet revolution took place. Juráňová’s Salome had some political connotations and the actress travelled with it all over former Czechoslovakia, which was then a totalitarian state. In some places the top representatives of political power banned her performances, in other places she was greeted by candlelight in dusty chapels. Ironically, the same chapels revived by her breath of life, firmly shut the door in her face immediately after the fall of the totalitarian regime. Salome was suddenly too daring for them, too naked, never mind that she spoke words from the Bible. The author was partly inspired by Oscar Wilde, but in her text she also quoted some passages from the Song of Songs, one of the most beautiful erotic poem ever. Salome, a harried woman, her mind full of memories, intrusive refrains, returns to the scene of love and death, to Jochanan’s grave.
Jana Bittnerová took her Salome to Paris, to a different country, different language and different life. Juráňová’s text as translated into French by Juliana Sataníková pointed out the universal themes and added another dimension: the musicality and rhythm of the French language which brought the play even closer to poetry. Juráňová’s monodrama in the context of contemporary French drama certainly deserves to be published as a book which, incidentally, is what Paris audiences often call for.
A peculiar and intimate relationship between the actress and the character has developed after all those years. What fascinates the audience and frightens the director, is the fragility of truth on stage, the nakedness of the single actress facing the public. How deep into her own life can an actress let the character and how far can she let go of her own self on stage?
This play is now being performed only from time to time and since its Slovak premiere it has undergone many changes: new direction, original music played by its composers – the Czech violinist P. Ružička and oboist V. Borovka – during the performance. Being alone in a monodrama is not what it used to be.
Jana Bittnerová likes to come back to Juráňová’s Salome, if only to have a little chat with her old friend about what´s new, comment ça va, how is life going. Two strangers on the road, two women battered by life but never giving up on hope. They say that truth walks around naked and barefoot and at least in the theatre this still applies.
Translated by Alena Redlingerová
