Salome at Peterborough Players

• Headlining the new production is soprano Elza van den Heever as the unhinged heroine, who demands the head of Jochanaan, sung by celebrated baritone Peter Mattei. Tenor Gerhard Siegel is Salome’s lecherous stepfather, King Herod, with mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung as his wife, Herodias, and tenor Piotr Buszewski as Narraboth. • Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts his first Met performances of Strauss’s one-act tragedy, which receives its first new production at the company in 20 years. Claus Guth, one of Europe’s leading opera directors, gives the biblical story—already filtered through the beautiful and strange imagination of Oscar Wilde’s play—a psychologically perceptive, Victorian-era setting rich in symbolism and subtle shades of darkness and light. • From the opening measure, Strauss’s score announces itself as exotic and thoroughly compelling, with much of the work’s magic coming from the orchestra pit. For all the wonder in the orchestra, the opera is uniquely demanding on the singers, particularly the title role, which stands as one of the most challenging—and exhilarating—in the repertoire.