Seeing Salome, Seeing Salome, Seeing Seeing: Atom Egoyan’s Salome at the Canadian Opera Company

This review of the Canadian Opera Company’s production of Richard Strauss’s Salome specifically explores the theme of looking and being looked at, which is especially essential to this production because it is directed by film-maker Atom Egoyan. This review highlights how seeing facilitates understanding, a conceit that is appealed to in Egoyan’s staging of the “Dance of Seven Veils,” which, rather than putting the body of Salome herself on display, shows the audience the history of violence that Salome experienced in her youth, which consequently provides insight into her motivation to enact cruel violence on Jochanaan, who will not return her gaze.