SALOME
June 18 & 20, 2026 | 7:30 pm
Music Hall • springer auditorium
Music by Richard Strauss
Libretto by Hedwig Lachmann
Sung in German with projected English translations
LUST. POWER. PROPHECY.
Salome, the teenage princess of Judea, becomes dangerously fixated on the imprisoned prophet John the Baptist. When he rejects her advances, her desire curdles into obsession. At her stepfather Herod’s birthday feast, Salome dances and, at her maniacal mother’s behest, demands a gruesome reward. Set to Richard Strauss’s lush score, Salome is a fever dream of lust, power, and prophecy, where every glance is loaded and no desire is without cost.
Tickets are available now as part of a 2026 Summer Festival season ticket package. Tickets to individual performances go on sale Friday, November 21, 2025.
Cast & Creative Team
Salome – Kathryn Lewek
Herod – Chad Shelton
Jochanaan (John the Baptist) – Alfred Walker
Herodias – Michelle DeYoung
Narraboth – Zach Borichevsky
Conductor – Robert Spano
Stage Director – Jose Maria Condemi
Lighting Designer – Thomas C. Hase
Featuring the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
DISCOVER MORE
Opera Insights
Enhance your appreciation of Salome with a pre-curtain talk one hour before each performance in Music Hall's Corbett Tower. Members of the artistic staff and/or guests offer a 30-minute overview and insights into the opera's history, music, and production. Free to all ticket holders. No reservations required.
Meet the Composer
Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss was an outstanding German Romantic composer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His symphonic poems of the 1890s and his operas of the following decade have remained an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire.
Original illustration of “Salome”: Aimee Sposito Martini