Heinrich Conried

Very few works of art retain the power to shock and disturb that they showed on their opening night decades earlier. One of those is Richard Strauss's 1905 operaSalome. When it first appeared, this steamy brew of eroticism and religion so unnerved audiences that it was banned in Vienna and London. The opera's troubles didn't end there. In 1907, at New York's Metropolitan Opera, it was yanked from the company's repertoire just days after its premiere. At a semipublic dress rehearsal, the way in which the company's Salome, soprano Olive Fremstad, planted a passionate kiss on the severed head of John the Baptist, proved too disturbing for many of the timid Met patrons. The board revolted, demanding that General Manager Heinrich Conried bring Salome'srun to a halt. A statement was issued declaring that the work itself was objectionable and detrimental to the best interests of the Metropolitan Opera House.