Production opened Saturday, continues next week May 7, 10, 12
By Peter Alexander May 6 at 12:10 p.m.
Opera Colorado opened an effective and at times powerful production of Saint-Saens’s Samson et Delilah Saturday (May 4) at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House in Denver.
The final production of 2023–24 season, Samson et Delilah will run for a total of four performances, with additional shows scheduled for 7:30 p.m. May 7 and 10, and 2 pm Sunday, May 12.
The production is a traditional take on the story, meaning there are no attempted updatings or imposed psychological meanings. Sets and costumes represent Biblical times—“as much as you can set something in Biblical times and be accurate,” in the words of stage director Keturah Stickann.
The sets by Peter Dean Beck are evocative of the locations without devolving into middle-eastern kitsch. The first act opens on a nicely lit scene of the suffering Hebrews, in a public square under captivity by the Philistines. Here the set leaves plenty of space for the limited action that takes place, which is useful with so much of that act being otherwise static choral singing. Most impressive is the final scene, with the requisite pillars of the temple looming over the stage. The final collapse of the Philistine’s temple is simply accomplished but effective.
Stickann’s staging is never less than serviceable, which is what is needed for an opera with no hidden motives or deep psychological drama: everything that happens is out in the open. In the first act, the limited movements helped vary the stand-and-sing choral material. Repeated raised-arm gestures by the chorus are overdone but expressive of the repeated pleas of the Hebrews. Otherwise, the action moves smoothly.
The second act confrontations of Delilah with the High Priest and with Samson are well dramatized. However, the end of the act does not follow the libretto. In this production, Delilah gives Samson a magic potion, he passes out, and she takes a knife given to her by the High Priest and cuts Samson’s hair. But the libretto is clear: the hair cutting does not take place on stage for the simple reason that she never hears Samson’s secret onstage.
What Saint-Saëns and the libretto indicate is that Delilah and Samson go into her house, where she seduces him and learns his secret during an orchestral interlude. Delilah calls for the Philistine soldiers who take Samson away. It’s not clear if she has cut off his hair in her house, or the Philistines do so later, but it does not happen onstage. That is awkward, but a magic potion is too easy a way out. The composer’s version is better.
The final act is the best part of the evening. The first sene, of Samson pushing a mill wheel, is uncomplicated but moving. The destruction of the temple in the final scene works well on stage. Again, there’s not anything complicated to direct: there is a dance (the famous Bacchanale), Samson is brought in and mocked by the Philistines, then he moves between the pillars and brings down the temple. I was happy to see that the child who guides the blinded Samson was not forgotten: Samson sends him out of the temple before it collapses.
A fine cast gave top-flight performances. As Samson, tenor Rafael Davila made the strongest impression, singing with a solid, heroic-tenor quality. He consistently sang the words expressively, but did not always convey Samson’s internal struggle between his feelings for Delilah and his religious convictions. He was at his best in the final scene, creating great pathos while pushing the mill wheel and ringing out his denunciations of the Philistines at the end.
As Delilah, Katherine Goeldner brought extensive experience to her performance, including a prior appearance as Delilah at Virginia Opera. She no longer has the bright, focused tone of a young singer, but she had all the strength Saturday night to carry off the climactic moments. She sang with firmness of tone and great expression. And her Delilah is multilayered: aristocratic, calculating in her seduction of Samson, and vicious in her mockery in the final scene.
Nmon Ford was a tall, imposing High Priest, capturing both the authority and the evil implicit in the Biblical narrative. He brought a powerful and orotund, if occasionally rough-hewn sound to his portrayal. In the small part of Abimelech, the Philistine ruler who is killed by Samson in the first act, Christian Zaremba provided a dark, sometimes tight bass. Turner Staton was a solid Old Hebrew in his Act I dialog with Samson.
I am not dance critic, but I thought the dancers were smoothly integrated in the first act, more disconnected in the Bacchanale. The singers of the Opera Colorado chorus gave their lengthy, critical numbers a rich sound and secure ensemble.
The orchestra under conductor Ari Pelto propelled the action effectively, especially in Act II where the woodwinds shone in their prominent roulades. The full orchestral sound and expression supported the story throughout. The only reservation would be the Bacchanale, which was too fast. It is a frenzied dance, but taken too fast it looses clarity and precision, and the sudden tempo change near the end, which should be an explosion of sound and fury, looses its impact. Nevertheless, audience granted the expected spontaneous applause.
Tickets to additional performances may be purchased HERE.
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