It was also freely rumoured that the puritanical daughter of one of the millionaire directors of the Opera House had used her influence for the suppression of the new production.
It is interesting to hear what the objectors to the story have to say, and with this view I quote two extracts, one from a letter written by Mr E. A. Baughan to The Musical Standard and the other from a well-known critic writing in a leading provincial paper.
Mr Baughan writes:
"Oscar Wilde took nothing but the characters and the incident of John the Baptist's head being brought in a charger. All else is changed and bears no relation to the Bible story. That would not matter had worthy use been made of the story.
"In 'Salomé' everything is twisted to create an atmosphere of eroticism and sensuality. That is the aim of the play and nothing else. There is none of the 'wide bearing on life' which you vaguely suggest. Herod is a sensuous beast who takes delight in the beautiful postures of his stepdaughter. He speaks line after line of highly coloured imagery and his mental condition is that of a man on the verge of delirium tremens, brought on by drink and satyriasis. Oscar Wilde does not make him 'sorry' but only slightly superstitious, thus losing whatever of drama there is in the Bible narrative.
"So far, and in the drawing of Herodias, the dramatist may be allowed the licence he has taken, however. Even a Puritan must admit that art must show the evil as well as the good of life to present a perfect whole.
"But it is in the character of Salomé herself that Oscar Wilde has succeeded in his aim of shocking any man or woman of decent mind. He makes Salomé in love with John the Baptist. It is a horrible, decadent, lascivious love. She prates of his beautiful smooth limbs and the cold, passionless lips which he will not yield to her insensate desire. It is a picture of unnatural passion, all the more terrible that Salomé is a young girl. John the Baptist's death is brought about as much by Salomé as her mother. The prophet will not yield himself alive to Salomé's desires, but she can, and does, feed her passion at his dead, cold lips. And that is what has disgusted New York.
"You speak of fighting for liberty in art. If such exhibitions of degraded passion are included in what you call 'liberty,' then you will be fighting for the representation on the stage of satyriasis and nymphomania, set forth with every imaginable circumstance of literary and musical skill. I can conceive of no greater degradation of Richard Strauss's genius than the illustration of this play by music."
And here is what the critic of the provincial journals has to say:
"Salomé marks the depths of all that was spurious, all that was artificial, all that was perverse. Startling to English ears, the play was not at all original. It drew its inspiration from the decadent school of France, but in that world it would rank as one of the commonplace.
"The shocking, startling idea, that so outraged the respectable Yankees, is the twisting of a story of the New Testament to the needs of a literature of the most degenerate kind. But in Paris, and particularly amongst Wilde's friends, all such ideas had lost the thrill of novelty. Pierre Louys, to whom he dedicates the book, had couched his own 'Aphrodite' on similar perversions of history and mythology, and to treat the story of the New Testament in similar fashion was hardly likely to give pause to men who laughed at the basis of the Christian religion.
"Even Academicians like Anatole France dealt with the Gospels as the mere framework of ironical stories, and writers of the stamp of Jean Loverain out-Heroded Wilde's Herod both in audacity and point. Catulle Mendes recently produced at the Opera House in Paris an opera founded on the supposed love of Mary Magdalen for Christ. Catulle Mendes has very real talent, the opera was a great success."
Whatever the judgment of posterity may be, and there can be little doubt that it can be favourable, the play must ever appeal to the actor, the artist, and the student of literature, on account of its dramatic possibilities, its wonderful colouring, the perfection of its construction, and the mastery of its style.
It stands alone in the literature of all countries.