Photos: First Look at SALOME at Lyric Opera of Chicago

Lyric Opera of Chicago's 2025/26 Season will continue with Richard Strauss’s electrifying Salome, on stage January 25 – February 14, 2026.

One of opera's most provocative works returns to Lyric for the first time in 20 years in Sir David McVicar’s production, which is influenced by Pier Paolo Pasolini’s notorious 1975 film Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom. A trio of acclaimed singers make their Lyric debuts: soprano Jennifer Holloway in the title role of the young princess consumed by forbidden desire, tenor Alex Boyer as her volatile father Herod, and rising star Nicholas Brownlee — winner of the 2025 Richard Tucker Award and International Opera Awards Male Singer of the Year — as Jochanaan, the imprisoned prophet who dares to refuse Salome's advances. Conductor Tomáš Netopil makes his Lyric debut leading an expanded Lyric Opera Orchestra through Strauss’s revolutionary score.

We hope audiences can join us for this unsparing opera — where obsession leads to violence, seduction turns lethal, and one dance changes everything. From the infamous "Dance of the Seven Veils" to opera’s most famous silver platter, Salome shows that when a teenage princess doesn’t get her way, heads will roll.

Photo credit: Kyle Flubaker

Jennifer Holloway

Alex Boyer and Jennifer Holloway

Nicholas Brownlee

Jennifer Holloway

Jennifer Holloway

The company

Nicholas Brownlee and Jennifer Holloway

Jennifer Holloway

Jennifer Holloway, Tanja Ariane Baumgartner and Alex Boyer

Tanja Ariane Baumgartner, Jennifer Holloway

Nicholas Brownlee, Jennifer Holloway

Jennifer Holloway

Jennifer Holloway and the Company of Salome

Jennifer Holloway

The company

Ryan Capozzo, Jennifer Holloway, Christopher Humbert, Jr.