Elza van den Heever and Peter Mattei. Photo: Evan Zimmerman / Met Opera

How old is Salome when she dances for Herod and the head of John the Baptist? The Bible is ambiguous. In Aubrey Beardsley’s famous illustrations, she seems to shapeshift: at times, she looks young and androgynous, in other instances, she seems almost wizened, a crone older than Jochanaan. Is she 8 or 12 or 16 or 25? A young woman coming into a newfound sexual power, or a child who has had sexuality forced upon her from the time she could walk? In Claus Guth’s stellar new production of Salome, she is all of these ages and none.

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Staged in deepest black and dingy white, Guth’s production is unapologetic in its symbolism. It opens on a girl playing with a doll in relative silence. She breaks off its arms moments before that famous clarinet solo announces the beginning of the opera proper. There’s a ram-headed statue in the corner of the cavernous black palace hall; animal-masked men menace a nude female dancer, her face also covered with a cat mask. When Salome descends into the cistern, a white-faced Jochanaan sits in one corner. In the other is a rocking horse along with other nursery toys. The same little girl from the prologue sits partly shaded from view. Phallic imagery (ram’s horns, spears, knives, play-swords) and dolls are everywhere. Salome herself is dressed like a doll. Her clothes are those of a very young girl, hung uneasily on a grown woman’s body.

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