A Tragedy in One Act
| Salome: A Tragedy in One Act |
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Wilde began discussing the idea of the play in the autumn of 1890. He actually wrote most of Salome in French in Paris during the autumn of 1891. A few of his friends, Stuart Merrill, Adolphe Retté, Marcus Schwob, and Pierre Louÿs, helped correct Wilde's rather idiosyncratic French and made some textual suggestions. Robert Ross claimed that Wilde was inspired by seeing Gustave Moreau's series of paintings on the same theme. Despite persistent rumors to the contrary, both Wilde and Ross denied that the play was written for Sarah Bernhardt. Wilde wrote in a letter to The Times that, although he admired Bernhardt and was delighted that she wanted to produce and perform in it, "I have never written a play for any actor or actress, nor shall I ever do so. Such work is for the artisan in literature, not for the artist." Rehearsals were underway in June of 1892 at the Palace Theater when Edward Pigott, the Examiner of Plays, refused to license it. The ostensible reason was the policy against representing biblical characters on stage, although the sexual perversity of the play was no doubt an important factor.
Elkin Mathews and John Lane published the French version of Salomé, dedicated to Pierre Louÿs, in Paris and London in 1893. In 1894 they published an English translation with the famous illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley. Although Wilde had liked the initial drawing, "The Climax," he objected to the illustrations, claiming that they were "too Japanese while my play is Byzantine." The translation was originally by Douglas, but Wilde was not satisfied with his work, and Douglas does not appear as translator on the title page. Instead, Salome is dedicated to "my friend, Lord Alfred Douglas, the translator of my play."
On February 11, 1896, Salomé premiered to mixed reviews at the Théâtre de l'Œuvre in Paris. Complications arising from Wilde's criminal status and fears of hostile publicity led the director, Aurélien Lugné-Poë, to keep preparations secret. Lugné-Poë cast an actress as the Page of Herodias to avoid the homosexual overtones of the Page's affection for the Young Syrian, a choice imitated by several subsequent directors. The program was designed by Toulouse-Lautrec. The play met with a mixed, but generally positive response; many suspected, however, that much of the enthusiastic applause at the curtain fall was actually in support of the author.
The play was first publicly performed in Germany at the Neues Theater in Berlin in 1903. Max Renhardt produced it based on the success of his earlier private production at the Kleines Theater in 1902. The production ran for 200 performances. Richard Strauss, who had been in the audience of that earlier private performance, premiered his opera of the same name at the Royal Opera House in Dresden in 1905.
Salome was privately performed in both London and New York that same year. These productions were small-scale, private affairs, and the play was not publicly performed in London until 1931. Wilde never saw Salome performed.
Several film versions of Salome were made, beginning with an American version in 1908, 1910 British and French versions, a 1913 Italian effort, and a 1916 Russian film. A 1918 Hollywood version of Salome starred Theda Bara in the title role.