Observing the Feast Day of the Beheading of St John the Baptist...

...in the only way I know how, with the depiction of Salome in music and art.  The image above is of Emmy Destinn, the first Salome in Dresden, December 5, 1906.  There are two recorded snippets of her Salome still available today on disc and in iTunes but unfortunately not on YouTube.

                                    

Don't despair however because the video above is the earliest studio/radio broadcast recording from Christel Goltz, one of THE major exponents of the role in the mid-Twentieth Century. Recorded in 1948 and conducted by Joseph Keilberth it captures her in chillingly close proximity and was the first of three studio based recordings of the role.

The succeeding two were conducted by Clemens Krauss, (1954) and Ottmar Suitner (1963).  While these two recordings are a brilliant way to explore how a character develops over a singers career, you just simply cannot beat the youthful freshness of the Keilberth, it's absolutely riveting.