Samson and Delilah (opera)

Samson and Delilah (original title in French, Samson et Delilah, Op. 47) is a great opera in three acts with music by Camille Saint-Saëns and libretto in French by Ferdinand Lemaire. It premiered in Weimar (Germany) on December 2, 1877, in a German version, at the Grossherzogliches Theater ("of the Grand Duke", today the Staatskapelle Weimar).

The opera is based on the biblical account of Samson and Delilah found in chapter 16 of the Book of Judges in the Old Testament. It is the only opera by Saint-Saëns that is performed regularly. The Act II love scene in Delilah's shop is one of the defining pieces of French opera. Two of Delilah's arias are particularly well known: "Printemps qui commence" and "Mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix" ("My heart opens to your voice", also known as "My heart gently awakens"), the second of which is one of the most popular recital pieces in the repertoire. for mezzo-soprano/alto.

History

Composition

Dalila's role was written for Pauline Viardot (1821-1910), but the singer was too old to represent the role on December 2, 1877 in Weimar and was entrusted to Auguste von Müller.

In the mid-19th century, there was a revival of interest in choral music throughout France. Saint-Saëns, an admirer of the oratorios of Handel and Mendelssohn, began the composition of an oratorio on the theme of Samson and Delilah as suggested in Voltaire's libretto Samson for Rameau. The composer began working on the subject in 1867, just two years after finishing his first (and then still unreleased) opera, Le timbre d'argent . But his librettist, Ferdinand Lemaire, the husband of a cousin of his wife, convinced him of his theatrical potential.

Saint-Saëns later wrote:

“A young relative of mine had married a charming young man who also wrote verses. I realized that he was skilled and that he actually had a great talent. I asked him to work with me in an oratory on biblical subject. “An oratory!” he said. “No, let’s do an opera with it!” and began to mock in the Bible as I continued to outline the work plan, even sketching scenes, and letting him do only the versification. For some reason I started the music with Act II, and I played it at home to a select audience that didn't understand anything."

After Lemaire finished the libretto, Saint-Saëns began actively composing Act II of the opera, producing an aria for Delilah, a duet for Samson and Delilah, and some musical pieces for the chorus (some later released). passed to Act I) during 1867–1869. From the beginning, the work was envisioned as a grand duet between Samson and Delilah against the backdrop of an approaching storm. Although the orchestration was not complete, Act II was given a private performance in 1870 just before the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War with Saint-Saëns playing the orchestral parts, which were largely improvised, on the piano. Composer Augusta Holmès (Dalila), painter Henri Regnault (Samson), and Romain Bussine (High Priest) performed the roles from their part scripts. Despite the many precedents, the French public reacted negatively to Saint-Saëns's claim to stage a biblical theme. The alarm on the part of the public caused him to abandon further work on the opera for the next two years.

In the summer of 1872, not long after the premiere of Saint-Saëns's second opera La princesse jaune, the composer went to Weimar to see the first revival of The Gold Wagner's Rhine under the baton of Franz Liszt, the first musical director of the Weimar court opera and orchestra. Liszt was very interested in producing new works by talented composers and convinced Saint-Saëns to finish Samson and Delilah, even offering to produce the finished work at the Grand Ducal Opera House in Weimar. Encouraged, Saint-Saëns began composing the first act in late 1872 and worked on it for the next several years. He wrote a large quantity of the first act and finished it during a trip to Algiers in 1874. Returning to France in 1875, Saint-Saëns presented the first act in Paris at the Théâtre du Châtelet in a format similar to the performance of the second act. in 1870. The work was harshly received by music critics and failed to arouse public interest. That same year the acclaimed mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot, for whom Saint-Saëns had written the role of Delilah, organized and performed in a private performance of the second act at a friend's house in Croissy, with the composer at the piano. Viardot was a great admirer of the work, and she hoped that this private performance would encourage Halanzier, the director of the Paris Opera who had attended, to stage the entire production. Although Saint-Saëns finished the score in 1876, no opera house in France showed any desire to perform Samson and Delilah. Liszt's continued support, however, led to the work being staged in Weimar in 1877.

Representations

Weimar premiere

The Teatro del Gran Duque in Weimar (today the Staatskapelle Weimar) was the place where it was premiered completely Samson and Dalila December 2, 1877.

Although Liszt was no longer the musical director in Weimar, he still had great influence at the Weimar court. Eduard Lassen, the director who succeeded him in Weimar, owed much of his success to his celebrated predecessor, and Liszt used his influence to arrange the premiere of Samson and Delilah with Lassen. on the podium during the 1877–1878 season. The libretto was duly translated into German for the production and the opera's first performance was on December 2, 1877 at the Grossherzogliches Theater (Theatre of the Grand Duke). Viardot was too old to sing Delilah, so the role was entrusted to Auguste von Müller, a resident performer at the Weimar Opera House. Although it was a resounding success with the Weimar public and critics, the opera was not immediately revived at any other opera house.

Representations in the 19th century

In France, opera would have to overcome a lot of resistance for using a biblical theme. After numerous rejections in its early years, Samson and Delilah finally began to attract the attention of major opera houses in the 1890s. Although the first revival of Samson and Delilah i> was in Germany at the Hamburg State Opera in 1882, it was not heard in France until March 3, 1890 (thirteen years after the Weimar premiere) at the Théâtre des Arts in Rouen with Carlotta Bossi as Delilah and Jean- Alexandre Talazac as Samson. The opera received its Paris premiere at the Éden-Théâtre on October 31, 1890 with Rosine Bloch as Delilah and Talazac again singing Samson, this time to a much warmer reception by the Parisian public. Over the next two years, it was staged in Bordeaux, Geneva, Toulouse, Nantes, Dijon, and Montpellier. The Paris Opera finally staged the opera on November 23, 1892 in a performance under the supervision of Saint-Saëns conducted by Édouard Colonne with Blanche Deschamps-Jéhin as Delilah and Edmond Vergnet as Samson, a performance that was lauded by critics and the public.

Samson and Delilah also achieved great popularity outside of France in the 1890s. It made its successful debut in Monaco at the Monte Carlo Opera on March 15, 1892. It was followed by the United States premiere United at Carnegie Hall in a concert version on March 25, 1892. The first performance of the opera on the American stage took place at the French Opera House in New Orleans on January 4, 1893. The opera premiered in Italy at the Teatro Pagliano in Florence on March 26, 1892. In England, the opera was first performed on September 25, 1893 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Although the company intended to perform the work in a fully staged production, the Lord Chamberlain objected to a Biblical work being staged and the company was forced to present the work in a concert version.

20th and 21st centuries

By 1906, Samson and Delilah had received more than 200 international performances. The opera has remained moderately popular ever since, and although it is not among the most frequently performed operas, the work has entered the operatic repertoire at major opera houses.

	"Vois ma misère, make them!" ("Woe, behold my misery!" by Samson and Dalila, act III, scene 1) Enrico Caruso premiered Sanson's role at the Metropolitan Opera in New York during his 1915–1916 season and recorded "Vois ma misère, hélas!" in 1916.
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The Metropolitan Opera revived the opera in its 1915–1916 season with Margarete Matzenauer as Delilah, Enrico Caruso as Samson, and Pasquale Amato as the High Priest. Since then the company has staged productions of the opera at least once every decade giving more than 200 performances of the work. The most recent was in 2006 with Olga Borodina as Dalila and Jon Fredric West as Samson. Olga Borodina had already represented the role in the 2003-2004 season of the Chicago Lyric Opera, with José Cura as Samson. And Borodina reprized the role for the San Francisco Opera in 2008, with Clifton Forbis.

Samson and Delilah is a constant presence in the opera houses of Europe. By the year 1920, the Paris Opera had given more than five hundred performances of the opera alone. Among the most recent productions are performances at La Scala in 2002 (Plácido Domingo and Borodina), the Royal Opera House in 2004 (Denyce Graves and José Cura), Teatro Comunal de Bologna in 2008 (Julia Gertseva and Andrew Richards), the National Theater in Prague in 2008, the Royal Swedish Opera in 2008 (Anna Larsson and Lars Cleveman) and the Vlaamse Opera in 2009 (Marianna Tarasova and Torsten Kerl).

Throughout its history, Samson and Delilah has served as a star vehicle for many singers. In particular, the role of Dalila is considered one of the great operatic roles for mezzo-sopranos. Singers who have been linked to this role include Ebe Stignani, Grace Bumbry, Julia Claussen, Giulietta Simionato, Fiorenza Cossotto, Rita Gorr, Denyce Graves, Louise Homer, Marilyn Horne, Yelena Obraztsova, Risë Stevens, and Shirley Verrett. Notable Samsons have been Francesco Tamagno, Enrico Caruso, Charles Dalmorès, Paul Franz, Fernand Ansseau, Georges Thill, Guy Chauvet, Giovanni Martinelli, José Luccioni, Richard Tucker, Jon Vickers, and Ramón Vinay. Apart from the aforementioned Pasquale Amato, Met baritones Giuseppe De Luca, Leonard Warren and Gabriel Bacquier have also been well known for their portraits of the High Priest.

Characters

Dalila (William Wetmore Story, marble, 1877)

Plot

It is based on the episode of Samson and Delilah from the Old Testament, specifically in chapters 13 to 16 of the Book of Judges and in the Book of Proverbs, Book of Psalms and in the Song of Songs. It tells the story of the most famous judge of Israel, consecrated from the womb of his mother to be the leader of the chosen people, endowed with superhuman spiritual and physical strength, capable of destroying the Philistine army with the mere power of the arm of he. The force had a condition, a "divine reminder" that Samson was still a man, and therefore vulnerable to sin and weakness: his strength lay in his long hair and if anything happened to him, he would lose it (somewhat like an Achilles heel).

Samson is defeated by an enemy lacking in weapons and physical strength: a seductive Philistine named Delilah, chosen by the high priest of the cult of Dagon to woo Samson so that she can extract his secret and defeat him. The carnal passion that Delilah arouses in Samson makes him forget her divine mission and, letting herself be carried away by her feelings and instincts, he reveals her secret as proof of love. Delilah, while Samson sleeps, cuts his hair and hands it over to the Philistine soldiers, who gouge out his eyes, and chain him as a slave to a waterwheel to be harassed and humiliated by the idolatrous Philistine people.

Samson, defeated and betrayed, laments, imploring forgiveness and receiving the recriminations of his people. In a ceremony in honor of Dagon, a false Philistine god, in which Samson was to be the "guest of honor" To prove to him that Dagon was a true god, not like the God of Israel, he implores the Lord for his supernatural strength, so that he can offer his life as a sacrifice and that of the pagan Philistines who dare to blaspheme his Holy Name..

Led by his guide to the temple, Samson exclaims his last praise to heaven and topples the columns, collapsing the temple and burying himself alive with the Philistines, including the malicious Delilah.

Overview of the work

	Place	Ancient Israel.
	Época	circa 1150 B.C., in biblical times
Act I	The entrance to the Dagon Temple in Gaza City.
Act II	Dalila's house in Sorek Valley.	Dalila seduces Samson by showing herself as a sensitive woman afflicted by ethnic and religious barriers that prevent her happiness. The marvellous aria-duo de Dalila ("Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix"), the true climatic moment of the work, the seduction of Dalila and the flaqueza de Sansón.
Act III. Scene I	A prison in Gaza.	Samson, blind and enslaved while turning the noria, raises his famous regret to heaven ("O ma misere") and receives the reproaches of his people.
Musical interlude
Act III. Scene II	Interior of the temple of Dagon.	In preparation for the pagan ceremony, the famous "Bachanale", danced musical extract of great quality, is performed, where all the moral chasm of the infidels is shown. The opera ends with a last divine invocation of Samson tied to the pillars of the temple, and the subsequent immolation of the Hebrew hero.

Music analysis

Saint-Saëns' opera has a marked oratorio musical format, especially in the first of its three acts, where Samson's (dramatic tenor)'s vibrant harangue to his people to rise up against Philistine oppression stands out. The first and last acts are somewhat rigid, except for the Bacchanale in the third act, with markedly exotic overtones, which makes it one of the most famous fragments of the score. The second act, Delilah's seduction of Samson, is highly inspiring. Two of Dalila's arias are particularly well known: Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix and Printemps qui commence, of which the former is usually performed in recitals.

Discography

• Note: "Cat:" is the abbreviation of the record label catalog number when available.