Soprano Elza Van Den Heever Has Nightmares From Her Disturbing Portrayal Of 'salome'

Elza van den Heever's portrayal of Salome sticks to her when she leaves the Metropolitan Opera for a rented apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

"Every night I wake up with the most disturbing nightmares, just random things that I dream and feel so real," the South African soprano said. "There's just a tinge of darkness that's lying in my subconscious at the moment, and I wake up in a pool of sweat every single night with very, very weird, very strange things that I dream."

Claus Guth's intense and disturbing production of "Salome" opens Tuesday night and runs through May 24, the Met's first new staging since 2004 of Strauss' adaptation of an Oscar Wilde play. The May 17 performance will be televised to theaters worldwide.

Based on the biblical story of the Jewish princess who was the daughter of Herodias and stepdaughter of Herod Antipas, "Salome" provoked a scandalous reaction to its 1905 premiere. It is best known for the seductive dance of the seven veils that the princess performs for her lecherous stepfather in exchange for a gift of her choosing: the head of St. John the Baptist on a silver platter.

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