ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a detailed examination of Trouhanowa's different embodiments of Salome, and in particular, her dancing in 1912 of La Tragdie de Salom with a scenario by Robert d'Humires and music by Florent Schmitt. The dance forms the start of the final section and all action is seen only in flashes of lightning as Salome dances and an aroused Herod rips off her veils. The La Tragdie de Salom, comprising the lightning dance effectively the Dance of the Seven Veils and the dance of terror' are perhaps the most revealing of Trouhanowa's artistry. Debussy's opera Pellas et Mlisande, then Strauss's Salome provided opportunities for wide-ranging and complex press debate over the future of modern opera, the Parisian critical mass presenting factions that were difficult to reconcile. Natalia Trouhanowa moved from the opera to the ballet stage, modulating her performance of Salome to different scores, and constantly refined and affirmed her dynamic and individual aesthetic vision and artistic personality.
