The Mary D. Fisher Theatre is home for the Met Live Opera programs for the 2024-2025 season, presented by the Sedona International Film Festival.

The season continues with Strauss’s “Salome” live via simulcast on Saturday, May 17 at 10:00 a.m. and the encore presentation on Wednesday, May 21 at 3 p.m.

Plan to come early as John Steinbrunner will lead a pre-opera talk one hour before the LIVE production on Saturday.

Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts his first Met performances of Strauss’s white-hot one-act tragedy, which receives its first new production at the company in 20 years.

Claus Guth, one of Europe’s leading opera directors, gives the biblical story — already filtered through the beautiful and strange imagination of Oscar Wilde’s play — a psychologically perceptive, Victorian-era setting rich in symbolism and subtle shades of darkness and light.

Headlining the new staging is soprano Elza van den Heever as the abused and unhinged heroine, who demands the head of Jochanaan, sung by celebrated baritone Peter Mattei. Tenor Gerhard Siegel is Salome’s lecherous stepfather, King Herod, with mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung as his wife, Herodias, and tenor Piotr Buszewski as Narraboth.

The story of this incendiary and powerful opera is derived from a brief biblical account: A young princess of Judea dances for her stepfather Herod and chooses as her reward the head of the prophet John the Baptist. This subject captured the imaginations of generations of visual artists. Strauss’s score combines the grandeur of Wagner’s epics with the focus and emotional punch of the short Italian verismo operas.

The 2024-2025 Met Live Opera season in Sedona is generously sponsored by Chris Fladlien.

The Met Live Opera’s “Salome” will be shown at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre on Saturday, May 17 at 10:00 a.m. (live simulcast) with an encore on Wednesday, May 21 at 3 p.m. The pre-opera talk will take place one hour before the live Saturday simulcast.

Tickets are $25 general admission, $22 for Film Festival members, and $15 for students. Tickets are available in advance at the Sedona International Film Festival office or by calling 928-282-1177. Both the theatre and film festival office are located at 2030 W. Hwy. 89A, in West Sedona. For more information, visit: www.SedonaFilmFestival.org.