Opera mezzo sees softer side of Dalila in ‘Samson et Dalila’
For Elina Garanca, there’s a clue nestled in the score of Camille SaintSaens’ opera “Samson et Dalila” that suggests the pagan beauty has genuine feelings for the hero she has vowed to destroy.
“It’s just two pages, the passage right before her big aria, ‘Mon coeur,’ when she asks him to remember those old days when they were just two lovers sitting in front of each other,” said Garanca, who is starring in a new production at the Metropolitan Opera.
“The music becomes so innocent and pure and transparently light,” the Latvian mezzo-soprano said in an interview. “She really expresses how wonderful it would be if there were no religion, no power, no struggles, so they could just be two people who connect together.”
But Dalila is also furious at Samson, the leader of the Israelites, for rejecting her in favor of his god, and she carries through on her seduction so she can deliver him to his Philistine enemies.
The production, also starring tenor Roberto Alagna as Samson and directed by Tony winner Darko Tresnjak, will be broadcast live in HD to movie theaters worldwide on Saturday.
In the opera’s final act, once Samson has been shorn of his long hair and blinded, the Philistines celebrate by mocking him. Dalila joins the public ridicule, but in Garanca’s performance when the others aren’t watching, her expression seems clouded by remorse, or at least doubt.
“Do you think she should be happy? Nobody knows, and that’s the point,” she said. “From my experience I do not know one person who has condemned somebody and who has not thought, ‘Oh, was it actually right what I did?’
“It’s open to interpretation and I don’t want to leave people with a clear picture. I want them to go home and wonder about it.”
That offstage haircut
The haircut that robs Samson of his strength takes place offstage,