No, no, no, Salome says in what feels like hundreds of ways to her lascivious stepfather Herod. No, I don’t want to drink with you, no, I don’t want to eat with you, no, I don’t want to sit with you. No, I don’t want to be looked at by you.

Jacqueline Dark and Lise Lindstrom in Opera Australia’s Salome. All photos © Prudence Upton 

But yes, I will dance for you if you give me the head of Jokanaan, she proffers. As the dangerously single-minded princess of Richard Strauss’ opera, Lise Lindstrom makes this moment of allowance – after so many rebuffs – complex and thrilling. Through her intelligently conceived portrayal, you understand that Salome has spent much of her adolescence fending off Herod’s advances, and is now fully alive to the particular, if admittedly limited, power she holds over him.

It’s too bad that Lindstrom’s keen insights aren’t matched by Gale Edwards’ production (revived by Andy Morton), which remains a blunt realisation of this complex work. Though not ineffective, obvious points proliferate and are made with little finesse: aristocracy gone to seed is represented by a string of carcasses for...