Newsday, February 2005

Conventional wisdom has it that Saint-Saëns' Samson et Dalila, originally planned as an oratorio, does not hold the stage well. In fact, Samson struggled to find a home in the opera house not because it lacks sizzle, but because of qualms about presenting Biblical tales within such unholy confines. With its spicy mix of religion, sex and song, glorious song, Samson abounds in the very things that most rile our species, thus making for a supremely riveting show.

The Metropolitan Opera's revival of Elijah Moshinsky's 1998 production does justice to the spectacular aspects of this work. Sets and costumes by Richard Hudson (The Lion King) establish a stark but effective contrast between the debauched Philistines, in scorching orange and pink, and the Hebrews, in severe black and white. Graeme Murphy's intriguing choreography for the Act III orgy combines body painting with gyrations of the let's-try-this-at-home variety.

Saint-Saëns' orgy music inspired many a Biblical movie score, and there is a touch of Hollywood in the Met's show—most notably, in the persons of tenor José Cura and mezzo Denyce Graves. He is tall and strapping; she is regal and voluptuous; both are comely and command the stage. There is chemistry between them, as when Graves' Dalila strokes and nuzzles Cura's resistant Samson, who then follows her beckon like a helpless child.

Hollywood, or at least Mel Gibson, seemed to have inspired some of the stage business. Bloodied and battered with his arms outstretched, Cura's Samson at the millstone resembles Jesus on the cross—a plausible image by the standards of Christian typology, which sees Samson's sacrifice as prefiguring Christ's.

While Cura's acting was affecting, his singing was uneven. Back at the Met for the first time since his 1999 debut, he showed few signs of artistic decline or growth. His voice is dark and beautiful in its lower and middle ranges; he tends to bark his way through high phrases (though he nailed his final B-flat); and his enunciation is cloudy. His vocalism ranged from disciplined (a stirring rebuke to the Hebrews in Act I) to willful (crooning and gasping in the millstone scene).

Her voice unsteady and lacking bloom early on, Graves did her best singing in Dalila's second-act plotting against Samson. As the Philistines' high priest, cold-stricken Jean-Philippe Lafont sang with gruff effectiveness, while Vitalij Kowalijow brought dignity and dark, rock-solid tone to the Old Hebrew's music.

Conductor Bertrand de Billy and the Met Orchestra shaped Saint-Saëns' score with fire and grace, highlighting its iridescent colors (the sultry prelude to Act II) and quiet radiance (the Hebrews' Act I prayer of thanksgiving) and creating a magical sense of inevitability in the transitions between scenes. The Act I yelps of the Met chorus gave way to wickedly merry hymns to the Philistines' god—till the walls came tumbling down.

Marion Lignana Rosenberg is a freelance writer.

SAMSON ET DALILA. Music by Camille Saint-Saëns, libretto by Ferdinand Lemaire. Metropolitan Opera, Bertrand de Billy conducting. Through March 19 at Lincoln Center. Visit www.metopera.org or call 212-362-6000. Seen Monday.