If our first opera of the season was pure farce, the last was
pure blood.  To set the stage, Herod is married to his brother's
widow, Herodias.  John the Baptist (Jokanaan) has pointed out 
that this is contrary to the Law, and has proceeded to make a
nuisance of himself about the matter.  This has annoyed Herodias
extremely, and she has had Herod arrest the man, and had him
flung into a dungeon, which, conveniently, opens under a grill
in the middle of the stage.  She thinks he should be done away
with; Herod is worried that this might be politically or 
religiously the wrong thing to do (he worries a lot).

The opera opens with the captain of the guard, Naraboth, 
proclaiming his infatuation with the beautiful Princess Salome, 
Herodias's daughter.  Salome is amused, and toys with him.  She 
has him open the grill and fetch out Jokanaan, contrary to all 
orders.  He explains himself, and she thinks he is sooooooo
noble.  She attempts to toy with him, but he isn't having any.
He offers to baptize her.  She is fascinated.  She has never 
met a man before with a one track mind that she wasn't sitting 
on the tracks.

Naraboth realizes that Salome is becoming infatuated with 
Jokanaan, and realizing the hopelessness of his own cause, kills
himself.  Salome says something to the effect of, "Oh dear," 
and then goes back to hitting on Jokanaan.  Concluding that
anything is preferable, he climbs back down into the dungeon.  
The guards oblige him by shutting the grill again.

Herod and Herodias come in, but can't have an uninterrupted 
conversation because Jokanaan keeps singing from his dungeon,
mostly curses and condemnations.  Herodias thinks he should be
done in, but Herod worries that he might have a point, and in
a delightful scene, asks five scholars of the Law just what he
should do, since divorce also has theological problems.  The 
five reply by singing at the tops of their voices, but all with
different words, in two different keys.

Meanwhile, Herod starts hitting on Salome like the dirty old man
he is, despite the fact that she is his stepdaughter and that 
her mother is sitting right there.  He talks her into doing the
"Dance of the Seven Veils."

Tradition has it that at the end of the dance, Salome ends up
naked.  But having somebody who can sustain the rather exhausting
singing the role calls for, and still both looks good naked and
is willing to appear naked is perhaps asking a bit much.  I 
suppose they might have had a body double, but they didn't....

Anyhow, after the dance, Herod picks up a nearby platter and 
offers to give it to Salome, filled with whatever she asks.  
In rather a snit about being snubbed by Jokanaan, she asks for
his head.  Herod is rather upset, because of the potential 
political, legal and religious problems, and tries to talk her
out of it.  She holds him to his word.

Presented with the head of Jokanaan, she proceeds to dance 
around with it, singing something on the line of "Look what you
could have had."  This culminates when she picks up the head
and kisses it passionately on the lips.  This is too much even
for Herod, and he orders his guards to stab her to death on the
spot.

All in all, nearly as bloody as "Hamlet", which has always 
amazed me since at the end they have to bring in a stranger
named Fortinbras, that we've never heard of before, just so 
they can have somebody alive on the stage at the end.