"The most notable feature of the production of 'Salomé' was the costumes, designed by Mr C. S. Ricketts--a marvellous harmony of blue and green and silver. Here praise must end. The stage was left ridiculously bare, and never for a moment produced the illusion of the terrace outside Herod's banqueting hall. Not even the cistern out of which the Prophet rises was discoverable--Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. And the actors! Without being too exigeant, I cannot but suggest that before attempting such a play they ought to have been sent by a special train to Berlin. Even then Miss Darragh would have been an impossible Salomé. She lacked nearly everything required by this complex character. The Dance of the Seven Veils was executed with all the propriety of a British governess. Mr Robert Farquharson, whose Herod delighted us last year, has now elaborated it to the verge of caricature. He emphasises far too much the neuropathic element, and revels in the repulsive symptoms of incipient softening of the brain. "I cannot think that either of these works has yet been given a fair chance in England. They are, however, things which will endure, being independent of place and time, of dominant prejudice and caprices of taste." On the Continent "Salomé" has become almost a stock piece and has been performed in France, Sweden, Holland, Italy, and Russia, and has been translated into every European tongue. It was not, however, till the production in February, 1905, of the opera of Richard Strauss at the Royal Opera House, Dresden, that "Salomé" occupied its true and proper place in the art world. Admirably rendered into German by Madame Hedwig Lachmann, the libretto is a faithful translation of the original text. The success of the opera was not for a minute in doubt, and with operatic stars of the first order to interpret the characters and an orchestra of 110 performers to do full justice to the instrumental music, nothing was left undone to make the production a memorable one. A distinguished foreign critic writing from Dresden says: "Death in Love, and Love in Death, that is the whole piece. Death of Narraboth, the young captain who cannot bear the burning words that Salomé addresses to Iokanaan; death of Iokanaan. Death of Salomé, impending death of Herod Antipas," and analysing the character of Salomé he continues: "It is not the Jewess 'so charming and full of touching humility' that Salomé represents, she is the Syrian who inspired the Song of Songs, for whom incest is almost a law and Semiramius, Lath, and Myrrha divinities. She is the Syrian a prey to the seven devils, who combines in her amorous cult beauty, death, and resurrection."