Thus Spake Zarathustra

To pair the thundering climax of “Thus Spake Zarathustra” with dancers spinning on their butts is Naharin’s kind of humor — like calling an hourlong work “Hora” and not including the Israeli folk dance by that name.

To be sure, a circuitous chain of connections is needed to get from “Thus Spake Zarathustra” and “Beyond Good and Evil” to Donald Trump’s ravings about “fake news” or the vicious fictions of Sandy Hook conspiracy theorists.

As a teen-ager, he came to school every day carrying a copy of “Thus Spake Zarathustra,” and for the rest of his life he was influenced by Nietzsche’s ideas about the need to create new values and to seek intense experiences.

Times classical music critic Mark Swed has been listening to a whole lot of Richard Strauss’ “Thus Spake Zarathustra,” conducted by both men and women — including recent performances led by Simone Young at Disney Hall and Esa-Pekka Salonen at the Soraya.

It was during this period of self-imposed exile that he wrote his greatest and most enduring books, “The Genealogy of Morals” and “Thus Spake Zarathustra.”