Today's On Demand Met Samson et Dalila

[lennygoran]

With a rainy soggy day Sue and I decided to go On Demand from the Met and watch the Sept 28, 1998 opening night at the Met with Samson et Dalila. We enjoyed the production very much. How ironic to see former Mayor guiliani kissing Placido at the end of his speech during the honoring ceremony of Domingo-the honoring cerempomy came after the performance and had all the Met bigshots. They played the Star Spangled Banner at the start of the opera-I didn't know they did that on opening night. I love this opera unlike Bernard Holland-his review is below. Regards, Len

The Met description:

Any time Plácido Domingo sings the demanding role of Samson is a gala occasion, but this time was even more special: the performance opened the Met’s 1998-99 season and honored the great tenor on the 30th anniversary of his Met debut. With James Levine bringing out all the color in Saint-Saëns's exotic score, the rest of the cast rose to the occasion. Olga Borodina’s sultry Dalila is matched to Domingo’s searing portrayal of Samson. The cast is rounded out by Sergei Leiferkus, René Pape, and Richard Paul Fink.


Performance Date Sep 28, 1998

Composer Camille Saint-Saëns

Librettist Ferdinand Lemaire

Run Time 2 HRS 28 MIN

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Chorus and Ballet


OPERA REVIEW; Revelry Onstage and Off at the Met

By Bernard Holland

Sept. 30, 1998



Opening night at the Metropolitan Opera is one of those times in the performing arts when the audience commands as much attention as the event being witnessed onstage. With the house bulging with gowned and tuxedoed patrons and with a banquet awaiting some of them on the upper levels, the Met made a shrewd choice of repertory on Monday night.

Indeed, Saint-Saens's ''Samson et Dalila'' was just the ticket: a second-rate opera offering just enough surface charm and colorful production values to compete with its many-hued listeners out front. Television cameras, transmitting the evening's doings to watchers of the Public Broadcasting Service, seemed to swivel back and forth from stage to orchestra seats, and I, for one, found the spectacle of spectators processing down the aisles at least as stimulating as Saint-Saens's dull-as-dishwater first act.

There were a few distractions from the general revelry. One marked the 30th anniversary of Placido Domingo's debut at the house. Mr. Domingo's extraordinary loyalty to the Met has included over 550 singing performances, 39 roles, conducting appearances in six operas, and 17 opening nights. The latter statistic ties Enrico Caruso in the first-night derby, and afterward Mr. Domingo was presented with a Caruso caricature and some autograph bars from Cilea's ''Adriana Lecouvreur,'' the tenor's debut role on Sept. 28, 1968.

Opera operates on so many different levels that one can often come to the rescue of another. It happens several times in the Met's ''Samson et Dalila,'' first of all in the role of Dalila itself, which rises above the musical mediocrity around it.

Second is the Elijah Moshinsky-Richard Hudson production, with its seductive oranges, reds, pinks and various points in between. The opera recounts the biblical struggle between Hebrews and Philistines, and the monochromatic depictions of the first and the extravagant shades that cover the second send out a message that goodness is boring, evil is gorgeous, and that for the pious, beauty is not to be trusted.

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Monday's display, however, was how beauty of singing can on occasion transcend the quality of what is being sung. We are used to good music's overcoming bad words in opera, but here was the voice in and of itself overcoming both. So splendid were the voices in this less than satisfying opera that one almost came to understand the rabidity of opera-singer cults, the loud and semihysterical bands of followers that attach themselves to individuals and relegate the operas being sung to a peripheral status.

It is hard, at any rate, to imagine a better Dalila than Olga Borodina, who was to have sung the role a year ago but took time out to become a mother. Ms. Borodina's confidence in the sheer physical quality of her voice emboldens her to range from powerful outbursts to near stage whispers, both of which carry easily in this big space. More important is the musical elegance of her delivery, the fineness of the diction, the absence of excess, the tastefulness that nonetheless is couched in the most passionate and seductive of terms. It was singing to remember.

For a tenor in his late 50's, Mr. Domingo still exhibits an astonishing vocal health. His Samson was at once reckless in its flat-out devotion and skillfully managed. Mr. Domingo's ultimate upward reach at the opera's last moment nearly went astray, but that simply reminded us of the exertions that led up to it.

The rest of the voices, all male, were at least energetic. Rene Pape made a good impression as the Old Hebrew. Sergei Leiferkus (the High Priest), Richard Paul Fink (Abimelech) and Bernard Fitch, Alfred Walker and Charles Anthony (as various Philistines) worked hard. Graeme Murphy's dance sequence and its minimally clad performers underlined a healthy interest in sex among the pagans. Duane Schuler created the lighting.

Peter McClintock took over the stage direction for this year's revival and seems to have toned down some of the overly excitable tendencies of Mr. Moshinsky's original. James Levine conducted the Met's orchestra and chorus in a performance that moved swiftly but never panted for breath.

''Samson et Dalila'' opened the Met's season but did not really represent it. Schoenberg's ''Moses und Aron'' and Berg's ''Wozzeck'' promise important moments later on. Carlisle Floyd's amiable ''Susannah'' will give the house a momentary American voice. Janacek's ''Katya Kabanova'' returns, and there will be new productions for three old favorites: Mozart's ''Nozze di Figaro,'' ''La Traviata'' by Verdi and Donizetti's ''Lucia di Lammermoor.''

''Samson'' was something less: a nice entertainment for the Met subscribers. One was happy for them, for it is they who keep this house in such fiscal good health. What raised Monday's performance above the level of mere floor show, on the other hand, was a level of singing that floated disembodied above both the opera and its party-minded listeners.

https://www.nytimes.com/1998/09/30/arts ... e-met.html

[maestrob]

Bernard Holland was kind to Domingo-understandably so, since he was the reigning star at the MET with no one else coming close. My own reaction was to turn away from what I heard, as Domingo's voice sounded strained and pushed throughout, even more so than in his Otello, unlike his studio recording with Myung-Wha Chung from a few years earlier, where he sounded fine. Borodina made a fine Dalila, so I stayed for her, while Lieferkus, as usual, sounded dry and also a bit forced as the High Priest. Still, no one can hold a candle to Vickers as Samson: I really haven't heard a voice since that could match his overpowering presence and vocal ease with the role.

There's something about trying to fill the MET's cavernous 3800-seat house that defeats all but the most secure and well-focused voices. The chorus, which plays a major role in the opera, sounded truly magnificent, as they always do these days.

Perhaps the MET will invite Bryan Hymel one of these days instead of the pushed-up Roberto Alagna (who had absolutely no business singing that role!).

[lennygoran]

Bernard Holland was kind to Domingo

Brian thanks-he wasn't kind to the opera-I love it! And we really enjoyed the experience-a fine performance with wonderful acting and certainly good singing-an exciting production-the comfort of our own home , a nice sized screen, clear captions-Borodina was the best Delilah I've ever seen. Only thing I didn't like was when Guiliani kissed Domingo! Regards, Len

[maestrob]

Bernard Holland was kind to Domingo

Brian thanks-he wasn't kind to the opera-I love it! And we really enjoyed the experience-a fine performance with wonderful acting and certainly good singing-an exciting production-the comfort of our own home , a nice sized screen, clear captions-Borodina was the best Delilah I've ever seen. Only thing I didn't like was when Guiliani kissed Domingo! Regards, Len

Blecchh!

I'll bet Domingo wasn't waiting for that kind of kiss from such a famous cross-dresser!

I also like the opera very much. It is really Saint-Saens's best vocal work-at least from those I've heard. He wrote, I think, 13 operas!

[lennygoran]

He wrote, I think, 13 operas!

Brian it would be nice to see a few more of them-especially Henry VIII (opera) -I see Bard did it but only as a concert performance-not for me-I want the whole production-- it's probably not in the cards though. Regards, Len