Salome is the only opera in a single act — it runs about an hour and forty minutes without interruption. A night at Herod's palace. Salome hears the voice of Jochanaan rising from the cistern where he is imprisoned. She orders him brought out. She sees him. She is immediately obsessed: she wants to touch his hair, his skin, she wants to kiss his mouth. The prophet rejects her with horror and is put back in the cistern.

Herod asks Salome to dance for him. She refuses. He promises her anything she wants — half his kingdom, jewels, white peacocks. Salome agrees: she wants the head of Jochanaan on a silver platter. Herod is appalled, tries to persuade her to ask for something else. She does not change her mind. Jochanaan is beheaded in the cistern.

The executioner brings Jochanaan's head on a silver platter. Salome takes it. She speaks to it. She tells it he was beautiful. That his voice was the most beautiful sound in the world. Then she kisses it on the mouth. Herod, horrified, orders the soldiers to kill her. They crush her beneath their shields.