Award-winning director Richard Jones returns to The Royal Opera to stage Saint-Saëns's spectacular masterpiece.
Award-winning director Richard Jones returns to The Royal Opera to stage Saint-Saëns's spectacular masterpiece.
Mrs Aline Foriel-Destezet
Mrs Susan A. Olde OBE
Julia and Hans Rausing, David Fransen, Gini and Richard Gabbertas, Alan and Caroline Howard, Aud Jebsen, Rena and Sandro Lavery, Trifon and Despina Natsis, Simon and Virginia Robertson, The Maestro's Circle, The Samson et Dalila Production Syndicate, the American Friends of Covent Garden and two anonymous philanthropists.
Story
Gaza. 1050BC. Samson, the leader of the Israelites, rouses his people to fight their oppressors, the Philistines. But when he kills the Philistine leader – a kinsman of his former lover Dalila – Dalila vows to take revenge and discover the source of his strength.
Conflicted between duty to his people and his desire for Dalila, Samson ultimately yields to her seduction, leading to his downfall. Paraded before his captors, Samson makes one last plea for help from his God – with shattering consequences for all.
Background
Pious restraint comes face to face with sensuous hedonism in Camille Saint-Saëns’s grand-opera retelling of the Bible story of Samson and Delilah.
Multi-Olivier Award winning director Richard Jones returns to The Royal Opera to stage this spectacular fin-de-siècle masterpiece, not performed at Covent Garden since 2004. Elīna Garanča stars as the Philistine Dalila, SeokJong Baek as the inspiring Jewish hero Samson and Antonio Pappano conducts the full forces of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House.
With superb singing in solos and duets of great intimacy and fervour, gorgeous music with thrilling orchestral interludes, and splendid choral numbers for the Royal Opera Chorus – this will be an opera evening to remember.
Cast and Creatives
Creatives
Reviews
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