Metropolitan Opera Archives

Saint-Saens' "Samson et Dalila" back at the Metropolitan Opera House last night after a season's absence, had a new Samson in Mario Del Monaco, while Rise Stevens returned to the other title role in a performance that revived familiar impressions about this tuneful, but rather faded, work.

Samson's music seemed suited to Mr. Del Monaco's voice, which proclaimed his defiance of the Philistines and other outspoken measures with the power and color usually associated with his top notes. While these, despite their effectiveness, gave occasional hints of strain, there was more discreet tone production, as well as warmth and range of hue, at other times and his singing also conveyed the moods of his role.

The dramatic force of his interpretation, however, had its variations; with considerable intensity as the Hebrews' champion in the first act and as the toiling captive in the semi-final scene, there was less of this element in his second-act scene with Dalila. Here he communicated something of Samson's conflicting emotions, but not to a wholly convincing extent, as if he were not yet fully acquainted with the role.

Miss Stevens' singing was unpromising at the beginning, rather opaque and not always steady. Later it gained, achieving the warmth and color of which it is capable at its best, but yet it relapsed from that standard from time to time. Her beguiling of Samson was variably persuasive; it has carried more conviction on some previous occasions.

Martial Singher was a firm-voiced and authoritative High Priest. Giorgio Tozzi was satisfying in his first Metropolitan appearance as the Old Hebrew, and Norman Scott fared well in the short-lived role of Abimelech. Robert Nagy, Gabor Carelli and Osie Hawkins completed the cast, with Fausto Cleva conducting.

Musically, the performance had its spirited and stimulating moments, but sometimes subsided into a more routine course. The work could profit by an entirely new production, but even the best of presentations could not fully disguise the conventionality of the music, the paling of much of its melodic fertility, despite some memorable episodes, and the lengthiness and lack of real emotional tension in the second act of the score.

Photograph of Mario Del Monaco as Samson in Samson et Dalila by Louis Mélançon/Metropolitan Opera.

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