Abstract
Early in the 1952 mystery novel Black Widow, a detail of musical taste offers the reader a clue about one of the main characters: “There was a phonograph in the living-room. She made coffee and put on Welitch's [sic] records of the end of Salomé. She listened with all her body as if the music had been written especially for her.”1 The young woman in question, Nancy Ordway (known as Nanny), will soon be dead, her fate ultimately ascribed to a combination of general amorality, keen sexual desire for an inappropriate object choice, and a misjudged sense of her own ability to control the course of events. Who better as a figure of operatic identification for Nanny than Richard Strauss's (anti-) heroine? And given the date of publication, who better than Ljuba Welitsch as the diva of choice? Salome's importance to the story persists beyond this initial reference and pertains to Oscar Wilde as well as Strauss. It extends across media, too, into the 1954 film of the same title released by 20th Century Fox, which prominently features music from the opera and invites us to hear through Nanny's ears.
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