[Met Performance] CID:14240

Metropolitan Opera Premiere, New Production

Samson et Dalila
Metropolitan Opera House, Fri, February 8, 1895


In French



Samson et Dalila (1)
Camille Saint-Sa?ns | Ferdinand Lemaire
Samson
Francesco Tamagno

Dalila
Eugenia Mantelli

High Priest
Giuseppe Campanari

Abim?lech/Old Hebrew
Pol Plan?on

Philistine
Antonio Rinaldini

Philistine
Antonio De Vaschetti

Messenger
Roberto Vanni

Dance
Maria Giuri


Conductor
Luigi Mancinelli


Director
William Parry

Composer
Camille Saint-Sa?ns

Camille Saint-Sa?ns



Samson et Dalila received three performances this season.
This performance was probably in French although the singers, other than Pol Plan?on, were Italian.

Review 1:

Review of W. J. Henderson in The New York Times

The opera is an uneven work, although it contains much that is characteristic of its gifted composer. Some of its scenes are written with immense force and earnestness, and occasionally there are bursts of genuine inspiration. There are other passages which, while they reveal the skill and ingenuity of a man of high musical ability, are after all arid. They betray a want of feeling, and at times even a lack of sympathy with the situation. The style in general has all the fluent, suave, and elegant melody of the French school; but there is a failure to reach the tragic pathos of the story.

The performance last night suggested one pertinent question, and that was: Why not keep the work on the concert stage? There is so little action in it that it seems hardly necessary to go to the trouble of dressing and setting scenery. The action is almost wholly confined to the ballet, and even that is not of a superior order. As a costumed concert, "Samson et Dalila" might have considerable attractiveness. It would require singers of a different kind from Signor Tamagno and Mme. Mantelli. The clarion tones of the one do not lend themselves readily to the accents of love, nor does the cold and somewhat forced style of the other suggest the seductiveness of the charming priestess who stole Samson's hair.

From the

Review 2:

Review of Henry Krehbiel in the New York Tribune

It did not require a very shrewd guesser three years ago when Saint-Saens's "Samson et Dalila" was given by the Oratorio Society to determine that the work had an exclusively musical value, and that a stage performance would add nothing to the public appreciation of it....There was a discouragingly small audience in attendance, and absolutely no enthusiasm. It was a demonstration the meaning of which was too obvious to be overlooked. Whatever else the present regime may have taught, it has not inculcated the idea that the public are more anxious to get acquainted with new works than to hear two or three of their favorite singers.



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