What personality traits of Herodias do you find attractive?
It’s not about finding her attractive or unattractive! Even with negative characters I’m not looking any less for the key to their character. You need the key to unlock their character. It’s fascinating finding out how these women became what they became, what makes them tick.

How do you approach this character?
With her the only way in is via my interaction with my stage colleagues, seeing as the character is pretty one-dimensional - in the words she sings, too. Spewed-out stories. In a single sentence she expresses her full scorn for Herod: “You’re a camel driver; I’ve always been the daughter of a king.” It’s her way of saying she’s married below her station. There’s not a lot more I can gather about her, character-wise. Anything I do manage to soak up, regarding my key into Herodias, is via the way she responds to the other protagonists. In Berlin I’m singing opposite some amazing colleagues. It’s a joy for me to part of it.

What’s your way of getting under the skin of this rather limited role?
If you want to know, I tackle it front on, one step at a time. I have enough time to rehearse and get comfortable with this production and slip into the skin of Herodias. So I can keep finding new things in the role as things happen around me onstage. When my fellow singers do something brilliant to set me up for a particular piece, I don’t necessarily respond in the way laid down in the production book, although I’ll still find something that gels with the director’s vision, the role and the moment. It not only takes a lot of concentration; you’ve also got to trust in the moment. It’s exciting.

The magic of the moment.
Mmm. At any point in the opera something new and unpredictable can unfold. That’s the kind of vivacity that’s part and parcel of the opera stage. Otherwise you might as well be watching a film.

Herodias takes a back seat while her husband abuses his power and her daughter Salome takes her revenge. Why do people look the other way?
Take a look at families where things like this happen. You’ve got people who are scared of losing status, scared of a marriage collapsing, scared of a brutality that might suddenly be visited on them. You’ve got jealousy of a daughter, you’ve got shame, and in Herodias’s case she’s thinking: it happened with me and now it’s her turn.

A dysfunctional pair: daughter materially wealthy but neglected; mother just looking on. Smacks of something we might read about in the papers.
Subjects like these, where abuse and vengeance are involved, crop up again and again. This Salome material is as old as history itself and still a mirror of society today. That’s what makes opera so alive, the fact that these ancient themes can be still be used to hold a mirror up to society. How to cover up? How to dissemble? How to let abuse pass without censure? What power-game systems are at work in a patriarchal society? In an age of #metoo this is a highly topical and sensitive story.

Can revenge still be considered a modern-day emotion?
Vengeance is totally archaic. It’s not a particularly subtle desire, but it looks like we’re hardwired to want to get our own back, to see someone suffer. In an attempt to suppress our vengeful thoughts we place a lot of value on being enlightened and following Christian, humane, ethical codes of conduct. But we only have to read the papers to see vengeance being exacted on a daily basis.

If you were out for revenge, what would it be for?
I don’t take revenge at all. Maybe I act or react in a certain way if I feel I’ve been treated unfairly. I’ll try to get some sort of dialogue going or I’ll keep other company. But revenge? No.