Best Salome?

[Tsaraslondon]

Love the Stratas video.

Nilsson sounds as ridiculous in the role of Salome as she apparently looked to you in video footage. This is completely the wrong voice for the role. Salome is not Elektra having a night off.

Don't know the one with Rysanek.

Back when Behrens recorded Salome, she did have the ideal voice for the role. A lovely slivery sheen at the top, and absolutely secure throughout its range. A great recording.

I am fortunate enough to have the Welitsch already, this the best of the live Met versions, with Welitsch still in her prime. $130 is an awful lot though, so keep looking. Just done't get it confused with the later one, that is more readily available. Welitsch is already past her best by then.

[Drasko]

$130 is ridiculous. It can be found currently for much less, but on a different German label - Line, of which I can't guarantee the sound quality, but the audio clips at jpc.de sound ok to me:

http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/Richard-Strauss-1864-1949-Salome/hnum/4496676

http://www.amazon.de/Salome-Chor-U-Orch-d-Metropol-Opera/dp/B00023PARI
or used from US amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Salome-Double-CD-U-Orch-d-Metropol-Opera-Strauss-Richard/dp/B00023PARI

[DavidA]

Karajan with Behrens is pretty unbeatable with the VPO playing rapturously and a strong supporting cast. She actually sounds like a young girl. A remarkable performance unless you want a rip-roaring audio-nasty like Solti-Nilsson. That is unbeatable in its way if you like an aural battering.

As a DVD the Stratas - Bohm is remarkable. Although Stratas' voice is far too light for the part she actually looks the part and her acting is mesmeric. The lip synch is a tally pretty well done.

[mjwal]

I am with those who praise Welitsch, especially in that 1944 recording of the final scene on an EMI LP that was also my first introduction to her voice (her later studio recording with Karajan, lacking a section because of damage to the shellac master, is colder); the Reiner is indispensable as a historic reference (I have that Line edition and find it quite acceptable), though there is at least one more manically orgiastic (live) recording out there, that by Dimitri Mitropoulos with Christel Goltz (1955 Walhall) - for all I know, the later ('58) Mitropoulos live with Inge Borkh may be as good or even superior, though judging by Borkh's studio effort with Reiner in the last scene, I would hazard that she ultimately lacks that insidious tremor of  juvenile hysteria that Welitsch and Goltz present. I have only heard the Behrens/Karajan once: very good in its way, much superior in recording quality, but...*(I saw Behrens as Kata Kabanova in a staging back when she was more or less unknown in 1970, and she was transcendent - nothing I heard from her subsequently began to approach that.) I can understand all those who want superior modern recordings - it is not my deepest need with music, especially vocal, because I grew up with shellacs (we called them 78s), moved on to LPs (not always sonically superior) and then started regularly experiencing opera and other music at the theatre or concerts, so I have different internal parameters. I have seen some very impressive performances of Salome and Elektra, but I am not sure I would wish to hear them on record, which is in so many ways a deceptive medium, especially for vocal performances and musical theatre.
* I would add that the live recording of Behrens/Karajan may be superior, even sound-wise, according to this useful resource: http://classicalcdreview.com/salome.html