Samson et Dalila

Like many of his French contemporaries, Saint-Saëns had a love for the exotic, and he gave full expression to it in Samson et Dalila: a Biblical opera of seduction and betrayal amid the temples, gods and perfumed girls of ancient Palestine. Premiered in 1877 after a long and difficult development, it was originally intended as an oratorio—which explains the prominence of choral writing organised around opposing groups, with Bach and Handel as respective precedents. But in the middle of that conflict is a love story that Saint-Saëns tells completely on the terms of mid-19th-century French grand opera, full of spectacle and dance. Samson inspires his fellow Israelites to rise up against their Philistine captors but is compromised by his love for the beautiful Delilah—who robs him of his legendary strength and hands him over to his enemies. Blinded and bound, he prays that God will restore his power, and with bare hands he destroys the temple of the Philistines, which crashes down just as the curtain falls. Vocally, Delilah gets the best of the score with three varied arias—including Act II's sultry "Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix"—that build into an alluring portrait of one of opera’s most celebrated femmes fatales. Samson doesn’t do quite so well, but he draws genuine sympathy with his Act III "Vois ma misère, hélas!" And Act III also contains the crowd-pleasing dances of the temple "Bacchanale", known and loved by audiences beyond the world of opera.