Music Theatre since 1990 - Schott Music

Synopsis
Das Salome-Prinzip is a new take on the biblical subject already famously treated by Massenet
and Strauss. Schneider’s piece distinguishes itself from these works both in its smaller scale as
a chamber opera and in its mode of address with regards to the content. It describes, explains
Schneider, how ‘the mechanism of how party decadence, materialism and lack of genuine human
exchange, warp and pervert the smallest attempt at being honest and idealistic in the face
of a narcissistic society. Salome who, in the first half of the opera, finds in Jochanaan a positive
role model among all the vanity and stupidity, becomes, in the second half, a monster herself
when her urge to communicate is frustrated: “If you had looked at me, you would have loved
me!”’
Das Salome-Prinzip
03.03.2002. Musiktheater im Revier
Schneider’s music follows theatrically sensuous gestures. The score for eleven instruments resonates
tenderly and quietly, by turns red-blooded and brittle as if spun from glass. The sounds
follow the trace Berg and Schönberg once left. This piece is a real alternative to the sumptuous
version by Strauss. (Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 05.03.2002)
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