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Comic Book Opera: P. Craig Russell’s Salome in a Production by Table Top Opera

An anarcho-syndicalist artistic collective dedicated to eradicating pretentiousness and bad rhythm from classical music. The above quotation is the motto of Table Top Opera (TTO), a chamber ensemble dedicated to multimedia projects based at the Eastman School of Music. Among TTO’s major endeavors thus far are collaborations with the award-winning comic book author P. Craig Russell based on his treatments of Claude Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande in 2012 and Richard Strauss’s Salome in 2014. Our article provides an introduction to Russell’s comic book Salome as well as to TTO’s production and investigates some of the theoretical issues they pose for opera generally and Salome in particular. We use the term “comic book” because Russell himself uses it. Scott McCloud established “comic” as the umbrella term for works consisting of graphic narrative and sequential art in his iconicUnderstanding Comics, and that usage remains standard, with the understanding that it covers a wide range of subjects and styles. The term is not unlike the designation “opéra comique,” which denotes the medium (opera with spoken dialogue) but not necessarily the subject matter.