Salome At The Met

Last night Aaron and I attended opening night of Salome at the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center. I know less than zero about opera, so all I had to go on was a quick glance at the Playbill synopsis before the chandeliers went up. It was all in German, so with my seatback subtitle thingy, here's what I got:

-Slutty princess gets bored at stepdad and mom's fancy cocktail party at the Apple Store
-Slutty princess sings to man in well who calls her mom a ho
-Slutty princess does a strip-tease for stepdad, shows titties
-Slutty princess asks stepdad to kill the man in the well for dissing her
-Slutty princess makes sweet necrophiliatic love to severed head of man in well
-Slutty princess killed by freaked out stepdad

The Met's production is set in the present day, so the one thing from the opera that I knew about, The Dance Of The Seven Veils, was more like The Dance Of The Two Hermes Scarves. I guess I enjoyed it, but mostly for the orchestra, not the songs by Salome, as I find opera sung by women to be rather shrieky. However, the audience went all ape shit for the title lead, Karita Mattila, bringing her back for several curtain calls (although by the fourth time, I was like, "she's milking it."). Anway, it was short, with no intermission, and the severed-head-love was nicely freaky. The show runs through October 16th.