Saint-Saens' Samson and Delilah

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Samson and Delilah

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Opera Classics Library Series

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Samson and Delilah

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“...there is a boy in Paris, named Saint-Saëns, only ten and a half years old, who plays the music of Handel, Sebastian Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and the more modern masters, without any book before him.” From the Boston Musical Gazette of August 3, 1846, citing the talent of the young Saint-Saëns: if he read a book or heard a piece of music, it was forever etched in his memory.


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Opera Journeys™ Mini Guide Series Opera Classics Library™ Series Opera Journeys™ Libretto Series A History of Opera: Milestones and Metamorphoses Opera Classics Library Puccini Companion: the Glorious Dozen OVER 60 TITLES AVAILABLE:

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Copyright © 2004, 2005 by Opera Journeys Publishing ISBN 0-9771455-7-3 All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission from Opera Journeys Publishing. All musical notations contained herein are original transcriptions by Opera Journeys Publishing. Discography and Videography listings represent selections by the editors. Due to numerous re-issues of recordings and videos, issuer numbers and designations have been intentionally omitted.

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Samson and Delilah

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Camille Saint-Saëns’s

Samson and Delilah (“Samson et Dalila”)

OPERA CLASSICS LIBRARY™ SERIES Edited by Burton D. Fisher Principal lecturer, Opera Journeys Lecture Series

_____________________________________ Opera Journeys™ Publishing / Miami, Florida


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Samson and Delilah

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Contents a prelude...

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Samson and Delilah:Provenance

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Commentary and Analysis

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Samson and Delilah

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Principal Characters in Samson and Delilah

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Brief Story Synopsis

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Story Narrative with Music Highlight Examples

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Libretto with Music Highlight Examples

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Act I

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Act II

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Act III - Scene 1 Act III - Scene 2

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Discography

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Videography

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Dictionary of Opera and Musical Terms

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Samson and Delilah

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a Prelude........ to OPERA CLASSICS LIBRARY’s

Samson and Delilah Is Samson and Delilah an opera or a cantata? This question kindles heated debate that at times rivals the towering passions of the opera itself. Acts I and III of Samson and Delilah are predominantly choral, a magnificent contrast to the vivid, consuming passions of Act II; powerful words that become realized through the emotive power of music. The conflict in the opera and the underlying biblical story essentially highlights the entire enigma of man: the spirit versus the flesh, emotion versus reason, the sacred versus the profane, and even love versus patriotism and duty. It is a story of consuming passions that presents one of the most exciting seduction scenes in all opera, the betrayal of a hero, and in the end, a mass murder on the grandest of scales as an entire temple is brought down on the infidels. OPERA CLASSICS LIBRARY explores Saint-Saëns’s Samson and Delilah, and features an insightful and in depth Commentary and Analysis that provides background of the opera and analysis of it characters, the Principal Characters in the Opera, a Brief Story Synopsis, and the Story Narrative with Music Highlight Examples. The Libretto for Samson and Delilah has been newly translated by the Opera Journeys staff with specific emphasis on retaining a literal translation, but also with the objective to provide a faithful translation in modern and contemporary English; in this way, the substance of the opera becomes more intelligible. To enhance educational and study objectives, the Libretto contains music highlight examples interspersed within the opera’s exposition. In addition, the text includes a selected Discography, Videography, and a Dictionary of Opera and Musical Terms. The opera art form is the sum of many artistic expressions: theatrical drama, music, scenery, poetry, dance, acting and gesture. In opera, it is the composer who is the dramatist, using the emotive power of his music to express intense, human conflicts. Words evoke thought, but music evokes feelings; opera’s sublime fusion of words, music, and all the theatrical arts provides powerful theater, an impact on one’s sensibilities that can reach into the very depths of the human soul. Samson and Delilah is a magnificent operatic invention, a towering tribute to the art form as well as to the genius of Saint-Saëns, a composer who was at the vanguard of lateninteenth and early twentieth century Neoclassicism in music. As a musical dramatist, he invented music that seems unquestionably appropriate to the dramatic action and text. Burton D. Fisher Editor OPERA CLASSICS LIBRARY


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Samson and Delilah

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Samson and Delilah (“Samson et Dalila”)

Opera in French in three acts

Music by Camille Saint-Saëns

Libretto by Ferdinand Lemaire

Premiere at the Hoftheater in Weimar, Germany December 2, 1877


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Samson and Delilah

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Commentary and Analysis

C

amille Saint-Saëns was born in 1835 to a prosperous Norman family then residing in Paris; he died in 1921. Saint-Saëns was an awesome child prodigy. At the age of two and a half he demonstrated perfect pitch and was picking out tunes at the piano. He could read and write before he was three, and composed his first piece. At five, he analyzed Mozart’s Don Giovanni, using not the piano reduction but the full score, and at the same age, was giving public performances at the piano. Saint-Saëns was not only a virtuoso pianist, but an excellent organist as well, eventually becoming recognized, as Franz Liszt described him, as the finest organist in the world. Saint-Saëns’ formal musical training began at seven, and three years later he made his official debut. He had total recall, and anything he read remained forever imbedded in his memory. His fame reached the United States where an article in the Boston Musical Gazette of August 3, 1846 stated that “there is a boy in Paris, named Saint-Saëns, only ten and a half years old, who plays the music of Handel, Sebastian Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and the more modern masters, without any book before him.” While studying at the Conservatoire, he received first prizes with honors, and later served for twenty years as organist at the famed Church of Madeleine. SaintSaëns founded the National Society of Music, and his prodigious musical accomplishments earned him admission to the French Academy. Saint-Saëns toured the world as a pianist, and in an age of flamboyant virtuosos he was an exponent of purity, refinement, and Classicism. He became a recognized writer of criticism, poetry, essays, and plays, as well as a music professor at the Niedermeyer School, where his pupils included Gabriel Fauré and André Messager. He was not only renowned as a gifted pianist and organist, but also as a fine conductor and brilliant score reader. At the beginning of his composing career, he was considered one of France’s musical revolutionaries, allying himself with composers who were considered progressives, such as Wagner, Liszt, and Schumann. Nevertheless, as he grew older, he had a sea change and became an archconservative, making enemies within the French musical establishment. He hated and despised the music of Franck, Debussy, and d’Indy, and feuded profusely with Massenet. As a composer, Saint-Saëns was known as the perfect technician whose versatility enabled him to write prolifically in all forms. A common charge against his music was that it was all technique and no ideas, empty in form, and elegant but superficial. His music achieved few successes in its time, prompting Berlioz’s quip that “he knows everything but he lacks experience.” Nevertheless, his music certainly possesses vitality and enduring qualities as it has remained alive and prominent in the concert repertory ever since his death. SaintSaens was a Neoclassicist whose traditions were rooted in the clarity and order of the


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Classic tradition. His music is chaste and avoids supersensuality, banality and bad taste. Saint-Saëns’greatest musical accomplishments are his copious orchestral compositions, particularly, his symphonic poems, the first of that genre written by a Frenchman: Le rouet d’Omphale (“Omphale’s Spinning Wheel”) and Danse macabre. His Third Symphony in C Minor, “The Organ Symphony,” featuring organ and two pianos, was dedicated to the memory of Liszt. His suite for orchestra with two pianos, Le carnaval des animaux, “The Carnival of the Animals,” is often performed as a featured concert piece. He also composed five piano concertos (all first performed by himself) and three violin concertos. Although Saint-Saëns wrote 14 operas, his most famous operatic work remains Samson et Dalila. Among his other operas—mostly obscure—are Étienne Marcel, Henry VIII, Proserpine, Ascanio, Phryné, Les Barbares, Hélène, L’Ancêtre, and Déjanire.

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aint-Saëns was composing music during the latter half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the transitional post-Berlioz period in which the Romanticist foothold was evolving toward other genres, such as Realism, Expressionism, Impressionism, and even atonality. Charles Gounod, the composer of Faust (1859) and Roméo et Juliette (1867), had changed the character of French opera, transforming it from its ornate Meyerbeerian grand opera traditions toward the French lyrique—a broad and arching lyricism in which the focus was toward restrained and more sensitive music filled with human values and melodic sentimentality. French lyric opera eventually evolved to impart a new aura of dignity to its subjects and actions, portraying intense personal relationships, strongly marked personalities, and profound human passions. The essence of the school became not epic but lyric, not thematic but melodic, not heroic but purely and passionately personal. A host of disciples of this new school of French lyricism followed, all creating showpieces that exploited the new lyric coloratura that Gounod introduced in Marguerite’s Jewel Song in Faust. Ambroise Thomas’s Mignon (1866) and Hamlet (1868) embellished the new French lyrique with florid and ornate pieces that sacrificed dramatic integrity but were well suited to the new lyric coloratura voice. Leo Délibes responded with Lakmé (1883) and its centerpiece, the “Bell Song,” and Gustave Charpentier’s Louise (1900) provided a sentimental and romanticized portrait of “Bohemian” Paris, which contained the heroine’s ever-popular hymn to love, “Depuis le jour.” Georges Bizet composed Carmen (1875), a groundbreaker in introducing Realism, or verismé, to the lyric stage. At the time, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche viewed Carmen as bringing to opera a Mediterranean clarity that dispelled “all the fog of the Wagnerian ideal.” Carmen’s alluring title character gave the French lyric theater a new thrust of realism with its melodramatic portrayal of savage passions and raw violence.

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Jules Massenet produced profoundly sentimental French operas that were saturated with lush romantic music for seductive female characters: Manon (1884), Werther (1892), and Thaïs (1894). Jacques Offenbach, a German-born Parisian who had previously proved a master of the French comic opera style called opéra bouffe, composed his only dramatic work, The Tales of Hoffmann, produced posthumously in 1881. Claude Debussy decisively influenced twentieth-century music with his singular operatic masterpiece, Pelléas et Mélisande (1902), an almost verbatim setting of Maurice Maeterlinck’s play. But like Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, the work strives toward “sung drama” and a musico-dramatic ideal by capturing the inflections, contours, and shadings of the French language. Its integration of text and score is fused brilliantly with continuous music without separation of set pieces; its leitmotifs are integrated into a subtle symphonic web, and its harmonies are lush and modern, yet tonal. Debussy’s style earned him the title of “Father of Musical Impressionism,” a term adapted from the painting style of the French Impressionists. Conceptually, Impressionistic music evoked sensations or impressions of a subject or idea, and was more concerned with subtle nuances and effects rather than with substance and structure.

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rench and Italian opera derive from the same Latin roots. Both genres usually deal with the same basic emotions, passions, and primal conflicts of the spirit and the flesh: love, lust, greed, jealousy, and revenge. Nevertheless, French and Italian operas are dissimilar in the style in which they portray those emotions and passions. French opera generally expresses its underlying emotions and passions with refinement and sophistication. Italian opera tends to be more direct and naked in its expression, and most of the time, intensely torrid in its exposition of tension and conflict. French composers achieve their intended subtlety by painting with sound and utilizing their total orchestral resources to express dramatic emotion. Italian composers tend to be more hot-blooded and lustful in their portrayal of ardent passions. In Italian opera, the heroines may express their passions virtually on the verge of hysteria. In French opera, emotions may be expressed with a sensual grumble. The Italian composer Giacomo Puccini and the French composer Jules Massenet were contemporaries. Both wrote operas derived from the Abbé Prévost’s Manon Lescaut story—Manon Lescaut and Manon, respectively. Demonstrating the contrast of the French and Italian style, Puccini’s opera rages with powerful, extroverted passions. Massenet’s French version is refined, subdued, and full of abstract emotion. Puccini may have best explained the comparison between French and Italian opera when he commented on the two Manons: “Massenet feels the story as a Frenchman, with the powder and the minuets. I shall feel it as an Italian, with desperate passion.”


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Samson and Delilah is grand opera, a nine-year effort by Saint-Saëns that remains very close in its grand style to those earlier spectacle operas by Meyerbeer and Halévy. Their goal was to be opulent and sumptuous, and feature large casts, ballets, and scenery. Nevertheless, its spectacle becomes overpowered by the towering and erupting passions of the second act. In effect, the uniqueness of Samson and Delilah derives from its magnificent blend of choral or oratorio-style exposition in Acts I and III that seems to frame its melodramatic second act. The second act provides a quintessential portrayal of intense human passions. For this act, Saint-Saëns provided French music to the core, inventing extravagantly luscious and seductive music to underscore the dramatic interplay between the enchantress Delilah and the soul-searching Samson. Saint-Saëns, a disciple of the new French lyrique school, was a polished craftsman who strove for dignified expressions of profoundly human passions. He delivers that very special French lyrique flavor into each of Delilah’s three arias: her first act “Printemps qui commence”; in the second act, “Amour! Viens aider ma faiblesse!”; and the opera’s signature aria and show-stopper, “Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix.” It is easy to understand a mezzo-soprano’s obsession to sing the role of Delilah.

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n late nineteenth-century France, the political and artistic climate was so tense that any inference to “Germanism” or any association with “Wagnerism” was considered treachery and blasphemy. From the point of view of French nationalistic ardor, art had become politicized. Wagner had become rather unpopular in France. In 1861, the Paris premiere of his revised Tannhäuser was a colossal failure. The perennially obstinate and Francophobic Wagner found it artistically impossible to honor the French request to move the opera’s ballet from its first act to its second. (At that time, French tradition adhered religiously to the inclusion of a ballet in the second act.) The request had no artistic rationale, but was a concession to Jockey Club members, who traditionally ended their dinner coinciding with the beginning of the second act, just in time for them to see their ballet-dancer girlfriends. The French became duly insulted at Wagner’s intransigence and scathed him, so as a result, Tannhäuser’s Paris premiere became a fiasco, and ultimately, Wagner’s name became anathema and an obscene word to the French. To add fuel to nationalistic fires, after France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 few Germanophiles remained in France. As a result, any French unconventional musical style was deemed a “Wagnerian,” particularly if he used leitmotif themes whose symphonic weaving had become the core of the Wagnerian style. Samson and Delilah fell into the political quagmire and was considered distinctly Wagnerian, an attribution owing to Saint-Saëns’ frequent use of chromatic modulations, large orchestration, and in particular the use of leitmotifs, however subtle their execution. As a result, Saint-Saëns experienced that same anti-Wagnerian furor that had earlier condemned Bizet and Carmen.

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Indeed, in Samson and Delilah musical themes are repeated and reprised—in particular, the music that underscores Delilah’s famous aria, “Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix,” which the composer recalls in variation during the third act when Delilah taunts Samson. Nevertheless, Saint-Saëns’ use of leitmotifs was far from Wagnerian. He did not alter them or weave them symphonically, but rather, brilliantly used them as thematic blocks which he interjected appropriately to provide dramatic emphasis and recollection. The second act of Samson and Delilah, with its exuberant explosion of emotions and passions, is more analogous to the new thrust of realism—the French verismé— that Bizet introduced in Carmen, than to the more introspective German style of Wagner. Samson and Delilah, with its explosions of intense passions, is indeed a French-style opera, and Latin to its core. The engine that drives this drama is Delilah’s sometimes brutal and unmerciful use of her erotic power to achieve her revenge. Her towering passions are typically French or Italian. Nevertheless, in France Samson and Delilah was initially considered too radical by the French public, and Saint-Saëns found himself grouped with the “Wagnerian radicals”: Liszt, Berlioz, and of course Richard Wagner himself. It is ironic that at the time of Samson and Delilah, Saint-Saëns revered Wagner enormously on musical grounds; nevertheless, he himself succumbed to the prejudices that emanated from World War I, and would later reverse his idolization of him. Because of all its Wagnerian associations, Saint-Saëns had difficulty having his opera produced. In an ironic twist, it would be the composer’s fortune that his powerful and admiring friend, Franz Liszt, the ruling spirit of Weimar (equally well known for his championship of ill-treated composers, particularly the early Wagner, whose Lohengrin Liszt championed in 1850), successfully produced and conducted the world premiere of Samson and Delilah at Weimar in 1877; however, it was sung in German. Samson and Delilah finally overcame its guilt by association and premiered successfully in France thirteen years later, in 1890.

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t the time of Samson and Delilah’s composition, Saint-Saëns had become much inspired by the flourishing French choral movement—in particular the revival nd renewal of interest in the eighteenth-century oratorios by Handel: Messiah, Samson, Solomon, and Jephtha. An oratorio, in format, is usually a composition with a religious text that is traditionally performed in a concert hall or a church; however, in deference to its sacred theme, it is usually performed without scenery, costumes, or action. SaintSaëns’original intention was to compose an oratorio based on the Biblical story of Samson, and indeed, the resulting opera is frequently performed in oratorio form. Acts I and III are almost predominantly choral, and they provide a magnificent contrast to the vivid, consuming passions portrayed in Act II, or even the energetic, voluptuous, and evocative bacchanale in the third act.


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It is indeed the second act of Samson and Delilah that is quintessential opera, and far from oratorio in concept or format. In the second act, the High Priest and Delilah conspire to defeat Samson, and they explode into an oath duet that is saturated with fire and passion, their duet concluding with a vow of death to Samson. Then Samson arrives at Delilah’s tent, breathless, insecure, desperate, and with pounding heart. He suffers from ambivalent conflicts; he curses his passion for Delilah, yet he admits he indeed loves her. Samson tries to persuade Delilah that he must end their bonds of love. His righteous duty bears a loftier purpose, and she in turn chides him. Delilah is jealous of Samson’s love for his God. Delilah speaks only of the god of love, recalling the happy days of their past love and creating guilt and that eternal human conflict: the spirit vs. the flesh. She swears eternal faith to Samson when she offers him her heart and soul: “Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix.” She begs Samson’s tender response, and yearns to be filled with ecstasy, her aria ending as a duet with Samson avowing: “Je t’aime.” Samson’s capitulation to Delilah suddenly evolves into the sounds of a storm in the background: the voice of Samson’s angry God. Is Act II operatic? What could be more operatic than its towering, erupting passions! But in spite of the extraordinary operatic grandeur of Act II, the choral aspects of Samson and Delilah have continued to haunt the opera’s reputation, and many consider it more oratorio than opera. The opera has suffered from tribulations, and in spite of the controversy—oratorio vs. opera— it remains secure in the international repertory, considered by many a sublime masterpiece.

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he Samson and Delilah story is derived exclusively from the Old Testament. In the Biblical time line, the flood from which Noah escaped is generally dated Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob between the years 2000 and 1700; Moses, the Exodus, and the Ten Commandments in 1275; Joshua’s conquest of Canaan and the division of the land among the twelve tribes in 1230. The year 1200 B.C. began the period of Judges—heroic military leaders who arose during the Philistine invasions and assaults on the ancient Israelites. Samson was born about 1090, the son of Manoah of Zorah of the tribe of Dan. His parents were considered rare examples of righteousness. Manoah’s wife was barren, but because they were devout and righteous, an angel appeared before them and promised them a son who became Samson. He was deemed a Nazarite, or consecrated person from birth who would be an example to Israel of faith and commitment to God. Samson was honored by the Israelites and became the twelfth Judge of ancient Israel and a military leader. It is during the period from about 1100 through 900 B.C. that the Israelites were engaged in continuing wars against the Philistines. The Bible cites significant events occurring during those wars: Philistine expansion into Canaan; the Philistine

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capture of the Ark of the Covenant at the Battle of Aphek; the Philistine destruction of the sanctuary at Shiloh; and Philistine monopolization of iron production, which hampered Israelite manufacture of weaponry and left them vulnerable to foreign invasions. In about 1086, Samson was followed by Samuel, a judge, priest, and prophet; by Saul, who was anointed by Samuel as the first king of Israel; by David; and by Solomon. Saul’s defeat of the Philistines in about 1020, together with David’s exploits, finally achieved independence and a termination of the Philistine wars. After the Philistine threat and rivalry was eliminated, the Philistines eventually assimilated and became Syrian subjects.

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erdinand Lemaire based the opera’s libretto on the Biblical story that appears in the Old Testament Book of Judges, 16: 1-31. The opera libretto omits Samson’s mighty deeds which earned him his fame and leadership among the Israelites: the slaughter of a lion with his bare hands; the slaying of one thousand with the jawbone of an ass; the gathering of 300 foxes, or jackals, tying them together, and then sending them through the grain fields with torches in their tails to destroy the crops of the Philistines; and breaking the ropes with which the enemy had bound him. During those ancient times, the Philistines inhabited the eastern Mediterranean coastal region, supposedly migrating from Crete after a natural catastrophe; Palestine is the Greek name for the region. Their five principal cities were Gaza, Ashdod, Askelon, Gath, and Ekron. According to recent Biblical scholarship, Philistines occupied that region from as far back as the twelfth century B.C., preceding Moses and Joshua’s deliverance into Canaan by thousands of years. Nevertheless, the Bible describes continuing wars between the Israelites and the Philistines from the period 1200 B.C. through 900 B.C. Much of ancient history involves the competition between gods. In this story, the monotheistic Israelites oppose the Philistines, worshippers of the pagan deity, Dagon, a god numerously referred to in the Old Testaments as the god of fertility. The possible derivations of the Dagon name have been speculated by scholars: from the Hebrew word for grain, from the Semitic word for corn, or from a Hebrew word for fish, the latter giving rise to the common image of Dagon as a merman—half man and half fish.

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he Bible story is an emotional and tragic story about faith, its loss, and then its return. The opera libretto concentrates on Samson as an inspired leader of the Israelites, but particularly on his human side, his weaknesses and frailties which make him vulnerable to the wiles of Delilah and the victim of Delilah’s merciless


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obsession to seduce, deceive, and destroy him. Samson’s righteousness and loyalty to his God are pitted against Delilah’s Philistine patriotism. The entire story is a tense conflict between the spirit and the flesh, the sacred and the profane, and love and duty. In the archetypal sense, Samson was a man of strength, but short on wisdom. Samson became distinguished as a military hero with great physical strength, but his loss of righteousness and his disobedience demonstrated his moral weakness. He was a man prone to sensual appetites and fleshly lusts. Samson acceded to his weakness and lust for pagan women by continuously visiting harlots and prostitutes—an act of blasphemy and a blatant profanation of his honor as a Nazarite and Israelite, as non-Israelite women were forbidden fruit. But Samson also fell in love with a Philistine woman and married her in spite of his parents’ objection, and, additionally, violated the proscription against intermarriage between Israelites and Philistines. Samson was also a man who posed many riddles. When he discovered that a man deviously tried to discover the answer to one of his riddles, he took his own vengeance, failing to heed Deuteronomy’s warning from God, who declared, “Vengeance is mine.” Samson’s famous visit to harlots in Gaza related in the Bible may have been an intelligence mission to observe Philistine strength. Nevertheless, he did indeed fall into temptation, and as a consequence, his enemies learned of his presence. They shut the city gates and believed they had him surrounded and trapped; however, Samson sensed danger, headed towards the city gate, found the guards asleep, hoisted up the gate posts and carried them on his back to the top of a hill, proving again his great strength to his enemies as well as to his own people. In the Biblical story, Delilah is identified as a mistress of Samson, but never specifically as either an Israelite or Philistine woman. Previously, Samson had courted Delilah, his notorious femme fatale, and he knew her well. But in the opera story, Delilah has two motivations to destroy Samson: she is a Philistine patriot, whose enemies are the Israelites and Samson, and she is a spurned woman seeking vengeance against Samson because he abandoned her for another woman. The Philistine bribe to Delilah may have been superfluous: her rejection by Samson provided sufficient motivation for her obsession for revenge. When Delilah teases Samson and pretends that because of her profound love for him, she must know him and therefore the secret of his strength, it is a great if not fatal moment of tension between Samson’s weakness and Delilah’s wickedness. Delilah knows well that passionate lovers cannot bear to have their love and sincerity called into question, and because she loves, she must know all. The conflict recalls those classic forbidden questions in legend and myth: the mythological Zeus and Semele, and in Wagner’s opera, Lohengrin and Elsa. Nevertheless, the wily Delilah seizes upon Samson’s weakness and vexes him with persistent pleas, requests, and demands, and she easily triumphs.

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The Philistines betray Delilah. Delilah really wants to overpower Samson and bring him back into her web. The Philistines promise Delilah that they will only humble or disable Samson, not kill or hurt him. But they blind Samson, in its metaphoric sense forever binding him. So even though his hair might return, and therefore his strength, his sight will never return (and the strongest arms can do little without eyes to guide them). In fact, Samson’s growth of hair no longer bothers the Philistines. He is blind, and they no longer fear him as a danger.

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amson and Delilah is an archetypal Biblical story in which the hero loses his faith and then it returns. As such, the story is recounted in the New Testament in Hebrews, where Samson is recalled for his faith. Samson’s God will accept no other gods, so Samson becomes the archetypal instrument to destroy his God’s enemies, the pagans. The Philistines humiliate and ridicule Samson and treat him inhumanely, but in his misery, he waits patiently for his God to appear to him, forgive him, and provide him with the wherewithal to exact revenge. The fallen hero finally experiences a moment of redeeming transformation: he realizes that the purpose of his strength was to serve his God and His people. Samson’s prayer for the return of his strength is answered, and he destroys Israel’s enemies. At the same time, he becomes martyred and honored in his death. Penitent, aware of his sins and his unrighteousness, he can now be forgiven and reconciled to his God. He is vindicated, redeemed, and wholly deserving of his place among the heroes of faith. In the end, the God of Israel destroyed His enemies, and Samson was redeemed and returned to his faith while he died praying. Samson and Delilah, with its core story about faith, portrays the glorious victory of the powers of good over the powers of darkness.

S

aint-Saëns created a magnificent music drama. His large orchestra is skillfully employed, and the opera contains imaginative music that adds an emotive power to its text. It is an exciting opera story that explodes with towering passions in one of the most exciting seduction scenes in all opera, the betrayal of a hero, and in the end, a mass murder on the grandest of scales as an entire temple is brought down on the infidels. The conflict in the opera and Bible story portrays the entire enigma of man—the spirit versus the flesh, emotion versus reason, the sacred versus the profane, and even love versus patriotism and duty. Samson’s special powers, given to him by his fearsome God, magnify the story and make these conflicts and tensions even more dramatic. Samson and Delilah is one of the most inspiring works in the French operatic canon. Saint-Saëns provided an imaginative score with poignant lyricism that portrays a magnificent canvas of human passions with powerful dramatic tension.


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Samson and Delilah

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The Old Testament story as recounted in Judges 16: 1-31 1 One day Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute. He went in to spend the night with her. 2 The people of Gaza were told, “Samson is here!” So they surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the city gate. They made no move during the night, saying, “At dawn we will kill him.” 3 But Samson lay there only until the middle of the night. Then he got up and took hold of the doors of the city gate, together with the two posts, and tore them loose, bar and all. He lifted them to his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that faces Hebron. 4 Some time later, he fell in love with a woman in the Valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah. 5 The rulers of the Philistines went to her and said, “See if you can lure him into showing you the secret of his great strength and how we can overpower him so we may tie him up and subdue him. Each one of us will give you eleven hundred shekels of silver.” 6 So Delilah said to Samson, “Tell me the secret of your great strength and how you can be tied up and subdued.” 7 Samson answered her, “If anyone ties me with seven fresh thongs that have not been dried, I’ll become as weak as any other man.” 8 Then the rulers of the Philistines brought her seven fresh thongs that had not been dried, and she tied him with them. 9 With men hidden in the room, she called to him, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!” But he snapped the thongs as easily as a piece of string snaps when it comes close to a flame. So the secret of his strength was not discovered. 10 Then Delilah said to Samson, “You have made a fool of me; you lied to me. Come now, tell me how you can be tied.” 11 He said, “If anyone ties me securely with new ropes that have never been used, I’ll become as weak as any other man.” 12 So Delilah took new ropes and tied him with them. Then, with men hidden in the room, she called to him, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!” But he snapped the ropes off his arms as if they were threads.


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13 Delilah then said to Samson, “Until now, you have been making a fool of me and lying to me. Tell me how you can be tied.” He replied, “If you weave the seven braids of my head into the fabric and tighten it with the pin, I’ll become as weak as any other man.” 14 So while he was sleeping, Delilah took the seven braids of his head, wove them into the fabric and tightened it with the pin. Again she called to him, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!” He awoke from his sleep and pulled up the pin and the loom, with the fabric.

15 Then she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when you won’t confide in me? This is the third time you have made a fool of me and haven’t told me the secret of your great strength.” 16 death.

With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was tired to

17 So he told her everything. “No razor has ever been used on my head,” he said, “because I have been a Nazirite set apart to God since birth. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man.” 18 When Delilah saw that he had told her everything, she sent word to the rulers of the Philistines, “Come back once more; he has told me everything.” So the rulers of the Philistines returned with the silver in their hands. 19 Having put him to sleep on her lap, she called a man to shave off the seven braids of his hair, and so began to subdue him. And his strength left him. 20 Then she called, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!” He awoke from his sleep and thought, “I’ll go out as before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the Lord had left him. 21 Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza. Binding him with bronze shackles, they set him to grinding in the prison. 22

But the hair on his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.

23 Now the rulers of the Philistines assembled to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god and to celebrate, saying, “Our god has delivered Samson, our enemy, into our hands.”

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24 When the people saw him, they praised their god, saying, “Our god has delivered our enemy into our hands, the one who laid waste our land and multiplied our slain.” 25 While they were in high spirits, they shouted, “Bring out Samson to entertain us.” So they called Samson out of the prison, and he performed for them. When they stood him among the pillars. 26 Samson said to the servant who held his hand, “Put me where I can feel the pillars that support the temple, so that I may lean against them.” 27 Now the temple was crowded with men and women; all the rulers of the Philistines were there, and on the roof were about three thousand men and women watching Samson perform. 28 Then Samson prayed to the Lord, “O Sovereign Lord, remember me. O God, please strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes.” 29 Then Samson reached toward the two central pillars on which the temple stood. Bracing himself against them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other. 30 Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines!” Then he pushed with all his might, and down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it. Thus he killed many more when he died than while he lived. 31 Then his brothers and his father’s whole family went down to get him. They brought him back and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of Manoah his father. He had led Israel twenty years.


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Samson and Delilah

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Samson and Delilah Principal Characters in Samson and Delilah

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Brief Story Synopsis

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Story Narrative with Music Highlight Examples

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Samson and Delilah

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Principal Characters in Samson and Delilah Samson, leader of the Israelites Delilah, a priestess of Dagon High Priest of Dagon Abimelech, satrap of Gaza First Philistine Second Philistine A Philistine messenger Old Hebrew

Tenor Mezzo-soprano Baritone Bass Tenor Baritone Tenor Bass

Israelites, PhilIistines, dancers, attendants of Delilah TIME: about 1150 B.C. PLACE: the city of Gaza in ancient Palestine

Brief Story Synopsis In Gaza, ancient Palestine, Israelites lament their bondage under the cruel oppression of the Philistines. Abimelech, a satrap (governor) of Gaza, denounces the Israelites’ belief in their god: He has forsaken them. Samson, a judge of the Israelites, avenges the insult to his god by killing Abimelech. He warns the Philistines that he now leads a rebellion against them, and Israel’s freedom is imminent. The Philistine High Priest pronounces a curse on the Israelites. At nightfall, the Israelites capture the city of Gaza. Delilah, a beautiful Philistine woman and spurned lover of Samson, enchants Samson, persuading him to join her in her tent in the valley of Sorek. Samson, unable to overcome his passion for Delilah, accepts her invitation. Delilah agrees to help her fellow Philistines overcome Samson by learning the secret of his strength. When Samson arrives at her tent, Delilah seduces him with her charms and plies him with wine, and in his weakness Samson reveals that his strength is his hair. While Samson sleeps, Delilah cuts his hair, and then calls the Philistines. Samson is captured, blinded, and rendered harmless. Samson is tied to a mill wheel and chided by his people for betraying them for a woman. He repents and pleads for God’s forgiveness. In the temple of Dagon, the High Priest, Delilah, and the Philistines mock and humiliate the blinded Samson. Samson is chained between two pillars at the center of the temple and commanded to praise the Philistines’ pagan god. Samson prays to his God for a renewal of his strength. His prayers are answered, and he pushes the pillars apart. The temple collapses, killing Samson and all the Philistines.


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Samson and Delilah

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Story Narrative with Music Highlight Examples Act I: A public square in the city of Gaza before the pagan temple of Dagon. The enslaved Israelites lament their servitude, imploring the God of Israel to dispel His wrath and grant them freedom: “Dieu! d’Israël! Écoute la prière!” (“God of Israel! Hear the prayer of your children!”)

The Israelites pray to God that they may not perish as they are the chosen nation who bears His holy message to mankind. They recall that their cities have been devasted by savage foes, their altars profaned, and their tribes scattered. “Nous avons vu nos cités renversées”

Samson, an Israelite judge, urges his countrymen to renew their faith, and arise with him in rebellion against their Philistine oppressors. “Arrêtez, ô mes frères!”


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Samson proclaims that the Lord has heeded their prayers, and their pardon is imminent. He speaks through the Lord and their salvation is at hand, but they must raise an altar to their God and praise Him. The Israelites lament that they are feeble and have no weapons, but Samson reminds them that he has heard God’s word, and he will redeem them again from oppression. The Israelites refute Samson, claiming that God, wrathful at their transgressions, delays their salvation. Samson admonishes the Israelites, imploring them that their prayers alone will bring salvation. “Implorons à genoux”

Their courage restored, the Israelites agree to follow Samson and arise against their captors, the Philistines. Abimelech, the Philistine satrap (governor) of Gaza, appears with an escort of soldiers and taunts the Israelites, reminding them that they are helpless and defeated because their God has forsaken and abandoned them in battle. They would be better served if they worshipped Dagon, the greatest of Philistine gods. “Ce Dieu que votre voix implore”

When Abimelech attacks Samson with drawn sword, Samson kills him, sparking a revolt. The Israelites again join Samson in an emotional avowal of freedom. Their faith in their God and their leader, Samson, will lead them to victory. Samson’s fervent affirmation of faith stirs the Israelites, and they join him in a spirited battle hymn.

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“Israël! romps ta chaîne! O peuple, lève toi!”

The gates of the temple of Dagon open, and the High Priest appears with his attendants. After seeing the body of the murdered Abimelech, he curses Samson and swears revenge against the Israelites and their God. “Maudite à jamais la race des enfants d”Israël”

Afterwards, the victorious Israelites return and chant hymns of praise, joy, and gratitude to God and Samson in their hour of triumph. The seductively beautiful Delilah appears with maidens bearing garlands and praising love. Delilah beguiles the Israelite hero with her charms: “I come to celebrate the victory of the man who reigns over my heart!” Delilah tempts Samson with her promises of her love, and invites him to renew his visits to her tent in the valley of Sorek. Delilah’s sensuous appeal to Samson is intoxicating. Delilah invokes her song of spring, an invitation to Samson to join her in rapturous love. “Printemps qui commence”

The Israelite elders warn Samson against Delilah’s treachery, but passion has overpowered reason. Samson cannot resist; the Israelite hero has been vanquished by Delilah’s allure, and has lost his will power to defy her enchantment.


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Act II: Delilah’s tent in the valley of Sorek Delilah is obsessed with revenge against Samson. He is not only the despised leader of the rebellious Israelites, but he rejected her for another woman. As Delilah awaits Samson, she invokes the power of love—the weapon she will use to conquer Samson. “Amour! Viens aider ma faiblesse!”

The Israelites are now masters of Gaza, and with Samson as their leader, their power is invincible. The Philistine High Priest implores Delilah to help them destroy Samson. If Delilah uses her wiles to seduce Samson, she can discover the secret of his strength; if she succeeds, the High Priest promises her wealth. Delilah and the High Priest swear their allegiance to their god, Dagon, curse Samson and the Israelites, and vow vengeance. Delilah seethes with passions of revenge and hatred for Samson, the man who spurned her for his God, and rejected her for another woman. She rallies all of her irresistible weapons of seduction in order to enslave Samson with her love. Delilah vows to conquer Samson and destroy him. “Il faut, pour assouvir”

Samson appears for his rendezvous with Delilah, hesitant and struggling. He battles the conflict between the spirit and the flesh, the tension between his loyalty to Israel and his faith in God, and his uncontrollable passion for Delilah.

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Samson tells Delilah that his God has chosen him to lead the Israelites to victory and freedom. As a servant of God’s holy will, he must break the bonds of their love. Delilah rejects Samson’s God, and invokes love: “What is the glory of Israel to me? The victory of your people means the end of my happiness... A mightier god, stronger than yours speaks to you through me; it is the god of love ; it is my god!” Delilah pleads with Samson to remain, overpowering him with her sensuous and ravishingly beautiful song, “Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix” (“My heart opens to your voice as a flower opens to the kiss of dawn!”). Delilah succeeds in conquering Samson. His passion for her overcomes reason and his faith. He yields to Delilah’s temptation, and as Delilah ends her song, Samson joins with her, vowing: “Dalila! Dalila! Je t’aime!” (“Delilah! Delilah! I love you!”) “Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix”

Delilah challenges Samson to prove his love for her. If he truly loves her, he must share the secret of his miraculous strength with her. She alternates between threats and pleas. When he refuses, she rejects and dismisses Samson. He then trembles with his conflicting emotions, becomes overwhelmed by his uncontrollable passion for Delilah, and returns to Delilah’s arms. Then, he reveals the secret of his strength. Delilah fills Samson with wine, and when he sleeps, she cuts his hair. She calls the Philistine soldiers, who overpower Samson and blind him. In despair, Samson realizes that Delilah has betrayed him, and he has betrayed his God.

Act III: Scene 1 - The mill at the prison at Gaza Samson, the Israelite hero and slayer of thousands of their foes, is now helpless, blinded, and shorn of his hair that was the source of his great strength. The Philistines have weighted him with chains and humiliated him. Samson, remorseful and despairing, slowly turns the mighty millstone that grinds grain for his Philistine captors. In the depths of his misery, he calls upon God for mercy. He realizes his guilt and atones for his sins, fully aware that he has strayed from the path of righteousness.


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“Vois ma misère”

His fellow Israelites, now recaptured, are heard reproaching him: “He sold us for a woman; he sold us for Delilah’s favors.” Samson prays to God for a miracle— just one more opportunity to redeem himself and the Israelites.

Act III - Scene 2: The temple of Dagon at Gaza In a bacchanale, a wine-flowing orgy, the Philistines celebrate their victory over the Israelites and Samson. They praise their pagan god Dagon and the joys of love and happiness. Bacchanale

The Philistines derisively mock and ridicule the blinded Samson as he is led into the celebration by a young boy. Delilah revels in her triumph in wresting Samson’s secret from him, and taunts him by recalling the ecstasy of their former love. As the High Priest, Delilah, and the Philistines praise Dagon, Samson is led to the center of the temple, chained between its pillars, and commanded to pay homage to the Philistine god.

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“Gloire à Dagon vainqueur!”

Samson prays to the God of Israel for a miracle: “Lord, remember Your servant who they have robbed of sight! For one instant, Lord, restore my former strength! Let me avenge myself and You, oh Lord! Let me destroy them here in their temple!” Samson’s prayers are answered. He feels his strength returning. As the chant of the Philistines reaches a frenzied climax, with one mighty effort Samson pulls the temple pillars down. Dagon’s temple crumbles, burying Samson together with Israel’s Philistine enemies. Samson’s God has triumphed over the pagan Philistines.


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Samson and Delilah Libretto Act I

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Libretto Samson and Delilah Act I

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Act II

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Act III

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Act I A public square in the Philistine city of Gaza in ancient Palestine; the imposing Temple of Dagon dominates the square. A crowd of Israelites are praying to their God Jehovah, expressing the grief and pain of servitude. Samson is among them.

Choeur: Dieu! Dieu d’Israël! Dieu d’Israël! Écoute la prière de tes enfants, de tes enfants t’implorant à genoux! Prends en pitié ton peuple et sa misère! Que sa douleur désarme ton courroux!

Chorus of Israelites: God! God of Israel! God of Israel! Hear the prayer of Your children, who beseech You on bended knee! Pity your people and their misery! Let our sorrow dispel Your wrath!

Un jour, de nous tu détournas ta face, et de ce jour ton peuple fut vaincu!

On that day that You turned Your face from us, we were overcome and vanquished!

Quoi! Veux-tu donc qu’à jamais on efface des nations, celle qui t’a connu! Mais vainement tout le jour je l’imment tout le jour je l’implore; sourd à ma voix, il ne me répond pas! Et cependant, du soir jusqu’à l’aurore, j’implore ici le secours de son bras!

God! Do You want Your chosen people to perish forever? I beseech Him in prayers all day, but it is in vain; He does not hear my entreaties, and does not answer me! Yet I continue to bow before Him , imploring Him to come to my aid!

Nous avons vu nos cités renversées, et les gentils profanant ton autel; et sous leur joug nos tribus dispersées ont tout perdu, jusqu’au nom d’Israël!

We have seen our cities pillaged by pagans who have shamefully profaned Your altar; our tribes were enslaved and dispersed; all that remains is the name Israel!


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N’es-tu donc plus ce Dieu de délivrance qui de l’Égypte arrachait nos tribus? Dieu! Astu rompu cette sainte alliance, divins serments, par nos aïeux reçus?

Are You no longer the God of deliverance who liberated us from Egyptian bondage? Lord! Have You forgotten the holy covenant You made with our forefathers?

Samson emerges from the crowd.

Samson: Arrêtez, ô mes frères! Et bénissez le nom du Dieu saint de nos pères! Car l’heure du pardon est peut-être arrivée!

Samson: Enough, my brothers! And bless the holy name of the God of our fathers! Perhaps the hour of forgiveness has arrived!

Oui, j’entends dans mon cœur une voix élevée! C’est la voix du Seigneur qui parle par ma bouche, ce Dieu plein de bonté, que la prière touche, promet la liberté! Frères! Brisons nos chaînes et relevons l’autel du seul Dieu d’Israël!

Yes, I hear in my heart the exalted voice of God! It is the voice of the Lord, who speaks through me; the God of goodness heeds our prayers; He promises us freedom!! Brothers! Let us break our chains and build an altar to the God of Israel!

Cheour: Hélas! Paroles vaines! Pour marcher aux combats où donc trouver des armes? Comment armer nos bras? Nous n’avons que nos larmes!

Chorus of Israelites: Alas! He utters empty words! Where do we find weapons to march into battle against our enemies? How will we arm ourselves? We have nothing but our tears!

Samson: L’as-tu donc oublié, celui dont la puissance se fit ton allié? Lui qui, plein de clémence, a si souvent pour toi fait parler ses oracles, et rallumé ta foi au feu de ses miracles?

Samson: Have you forgotten that our powerful God is still your ally? Did He often speak to you through His oracles, and rekindled your faith through His miracles?

Lui, qui dans l’Océan sut frayer un passage à nos pères fuyant un honteux esclavage?

Did He not part the Red Sea so that our fathers could flee from shameful oppression?


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Choeur: Ils ne sont plus, ces temps où le Dieu de nos pères protégeait ses enfants, entendait leurs prières!

Chorus of Israelites: Those glorious days are past. God no longer protects His children, or hears our prayers!

Samson: Malheureux, taisez-vous! Le doute est un blasphème!

Samson: Be silent, unfortunate souls! Doubting the word of God is blasphemy!

Implorons à genoux Le Seigneur qui nous aime! Remettons dans ses mains le soin de notre gloire, et puis ceignons nos reins, certains de la victoire! C’est le Dieu des combats! C’est le Dieu des armées! Il armera vos bras d’invincibles épées!

Fall to your knees and pray to the Lord who loves us! Trust His mighty hand to restore our glory, and then we shall find strength and be certain of victory! He is the God of battles! He is the God of armies! He will arm uswith invincible swords!

Choeur: Ah! Le souffle du Seigneur a passé dans son âme! Ah! Chasssons de notre cœur une terreur infâme! Et marchons avec lui pour notre délivrance! Jéhovah le conduit et nous rend l’espérance!

Chorus of Israelites: The spirit of the Lord has entered Samson’s soul! Let us have courage and banish fear from our hearts! Let’s march by his side for our deliverance! Jéhovah leads us and delivers us from the Philistines!

Abimelech, the Satrap of Gaza, enters with several Philistine soldiers. Abimelech: Qui donc élève ici la voix? Encor ce vil troupeau d’esclaves, osant toujours braver nos lois et voulant briser leurs entraves!

Abimelech: Who raises his voice here? These vile slaves scorn their masters, struggling in vain to break our laws and their shackles!

Cachez vos soupirs et vos pleurs! Qui lassent notre pateince; invoquez plutôt la clémence de ceux qui furent vos vainqueurs!

Hide your groans and your tears! We will not tolerate your protests; instead, pray to your God for mercy from your conquerors!

Ce Dieu que votre voix implore est demeuré sourd à vos cris, et vous l’osez prier encore, quand il vous livre à nos mépris?

This God whom you beseech remains deaf to your cries. Why do you still pray to him after he abandoned you?


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Si sa puissance n’est pas vaine, qu’il montre sa divinité! Qu’il vienne briser votre chaîne; qu’il vous rende la liberté!

If this God has power, let him show it to us now! Let him shatter your chains; let him give you your freedom!

Croyez-vous ce Dieu comparable à Dagon, le plus grand des Dieux, guidant de son bras redoutable nos guerriers victorieux?

Do you believe your God can rival Dagon, the greatest of Gods, whose mighty arm guides our victorious warriors?

Votre divinité craintive, tremblante fuyait devant lui, comme la colombe plaintive fuit la vautour qui la poursuit!

Your timid God fled from Dagon, trembling like a dove fleeing from a vulture!

Samson: C’est toi que sa bouche investive, et la terre n’a point tremblé? O Seigneur, l’abime est comblé!

Samson: (inspired) He blasphemes our Lord, yet the earth does not tremble? Oh Lord, You are overwhelmed by shame!

Je vois aux mains des anges briller l’arme de feu, et du ciel les phalanges accourent venger Dieu!

I see the hands of Your angels bearing flaming swords, and I see a heavenly host gathering to avenge God!

Oui, l’ange des ténèbres, en passant devant eux, pousse des cris funèbres que font frémir les cieux!

Yes, all the heavenly legions sweep down with their might and strike the foe with terror!

Enfin l’heure est venue, l’heure du Dieu vengeur, et j’entends dans la nue eclater sa fureur.

Finally the hour of God’s vengeance has come, and I hear His fury bursting through the clouds.

Oui, devant sa colère tout s’épouvante et fuit! On sent trembler la terre, aux cieux la foudre lui!

Yes, the entire earth flees in terror before Your anger! His lightning flashes, and the entire earth trembles!


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Cheour: Oui, devant sa colère...

Chorus of Israelites: Yes, the entire earth trembles...

Abimelech: Arrête! Insensé téméraire! Ou crians d’exciter ma colère!

Abimelech: Stop! Rash fools, and cease your anger! Do not incite my anger!

Samson: Israël! Romps ta chaîne! O peuple, lève-toi! Viens assouvir ta haine! Le Seigneur est en moi! O toi, Dieu de lumière, comme aux jours d’autrefois exauce ma prière, et combats pour tes lois!

Samson: Israel! Break your chains! Rise up, my people! Come and show your contempt! The Lord is within me! God of light, hear our prayer as You did in those days of yore, and grant my plea that we may prevail in battle!

Cheour: Israël! Romps ta chaîne! ...

Chorus of Israelites: Israel! Break your chains! ....

Samson: Oui, devant sa colère tout s’épouvante et fuit! On sent trembler la terre, aux cieux la foudre lui!

Samson: Yes, the entire earth flees in terror before Your anger! His lightning flashes, and the entire earth trembles!

Il déchaîne l’orage, commande à l’ouragan; on voit sur son passage reculer l’Océan! Israël! Romps ta chaîne!

He unfurls a whirlwind; even th ocean rolls back at His command. Israel! Break your chains!

Abimelech, sword in hand, attacks Samson. Samson wrests the sword from him and strikes him dead. Philistines rush to Abimelech’s side, but Samson brandishes his sword and repels them. Samson and the Israelites leave the square. The great doors of Dagon’s Temple open. The High Priest and attendants appear. The High Priest becomes shocked at the sight of Abimelech’s corpse. Grand Prêtre: Que vois-je? Abimelech! Frappé par des esclaves! Pourquoi les laisser fuir? Courons, courons, mes braves! Pour venger votre Prince, écrasez sous vos coups, ce peuple révolté bravant votre courroux!

High Priest: What do I see? Abimelech! Struck down by slaves! Do not let them escape! To arms, after them, brave men! Crush them under your blows to avenge your Prince; vent your fury on these insolent rebels!


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Premier Philistin: J’ai senti dans mes veines, tout mon sang se glacer; il semble que des chaînes soudain vont m’enlacer.

First Philistine: I feel all the blood in my veins turning to ice; I thought that my limbs were entwined with the heavy weight of chains.

Deuxième Philistin: Je cherche en vain mes armes, mes bras sont impuissants, mon cœur est plein d’alarmes, mes genoux sont tremblants!

Second Philistine: My arms are weak, unable to hold weapons, my heart seems to be failing, and my knees are trembling!

Grand Prêtre: Lâches! Plus lâches que des femmes! Vous fuyez devant des combats! De leur Dieu craignez-vous les flammes, qui doivent dessécher vos bras!

High Priest: Cowards! More cowardly than women! You flee in the face of battle! You have lost your courage and become fearful of their petty God!

Un Messager Philistin: Seigneur! La troupe furieuse que conduit et guide Samson, dans sa révolte audacieuse, accourt ravageant la moisson.

A Philistine Messenger: Lord! Samson leads a raging mob that is advancing across our land, destroying our harvest, and leaving devastation in its wake.

Premier et Deuxième Philistins: Fuyons un danger inutile! Quittons au plus vite ces lieux. Seigneur, abandonnons la ville, et cachons honte aux yeux.

First and Second Philistines: Let us flee from this needless danger! My Lord, let us leave as soon as possible, surrender the city, hide our defeat, and find shelter in the mountains.

Grand Prêtre: Maudite à jamais soit la race des enfants d’Israël! Je veux en effacer la trace, les abreuver de fiel! Maudit soit celui qui les guide! J’écraserai du pied ses os brisés, sa gorge aride, sans frémir de pitié!

High Priest: A curse on you forever, race of the children of Israel! I would extinguish your race from earth, and leave no trace for history! I curse their leader, too! I will unmericully crush him beneath my feet, his bones broken, and throat parched!

Maudit soit le sein de la femme qui lui donna le jour! Qu’enfin une compagne infâme trahisse son amour!

A curse on the mother who brought him the light of day! May the woman who once swore love to him, betray his love!


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Maudit soit le Dieu qu’il adore, ce Dieu, son seul espoir! Et dont ma haine insulte encore l’autel et le pouvoir!

A curse on the God he worships, the God who is his only hope! I despise and scorn him! I curse his God’s power!

Premier et Deuxième Philistins: Fuyons dans les montagnes, abandonnons ces lieux, nos maisons, nos companges, et jusques à nos Dieux!

First and Second Philistines: Let us flee to the mountains, abandon these places: our homes, our possessions, and our compact with our Gods!

The Philistines leave the square, bearing the body of Abimelech. Afterwards, the sun rises, and the Hebrews enter the square. Vieillards Hebreux: Hymne de joie, hymne de délivrance, montez vers l’Éternel! Il a daigné dans sa toute puissance secourir Israël! Par lui le faible est devenu le maître, du fort qui l’opprimait! Il a vaincu l’orgueillieux et le traître dont la voix l’insultait!

Elderly Hebrew Men: Joyous hymn of deliverance, rise to the Eternal One! He has used His awesome power to help Israel! Through Him, the weak have triumphed over the oppressed! He has vanquished their pride, and they will mock him no more!

Other Hebrews, led by Samson, enter the square. Un Vieillarde Hebreu: Ils nous frappait dans sa colère, car nous avions bravé ses lois. Plus tard, le front dans la poussière, vers lui nous élevions la voix. Il dit à ses tribus aimées: “levez-vous, marchez aux combats! Je suis le Seigneur des armées, je suis la force de vos bras!”

An elderly Hebrew man: (to Samson) He punished us with His wrath because we disobeyed His laws. Later, when we were in the desert, we lifted our voice toward Him in prayer. He commanded his beloved tribes: “Rise up and march into battle! I am the Lord of armies, and I am the force of your arms!”

Vieillards Hebreux: Il est venu vers nous dans la détresse, car ses fils lui sont chers. Que l’univers tressaille d’allégresse! Il a rompu nos fers! Hymne de joie...

Elderly Hebrew men: He rescued us when we were in distress, because we were His chosen people. Let the universe become joyful! He has broken our chains! Joyous hymn of deliverance...

The doors of Dagon’s Temple open. Delilah appears, followed by Philistine women bearing garlands of flowers.


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Choeur des Femmes: Voici le printemps portant des fleurs, pour orner le front des guerriers vainqueurs! Mêlons nos accents au parfum des roses, a peine écloses! Avec l’oiseau chantons, nos sœurs!

Chorus of Women: Voices of spring bring flowers to us to adorn the brows of the victorious warriors! Let our song fuse with the aroma of freshly blossomed roses! Sisters, let us sing with the birds!

Beauté, don du ciel, printemps de nos jours, doux charme des yeux, espoir des amours, pénètre les cœurs, verse dans les âmes, tes douces flammes! Aimons, mes sœurs, aimons toujours.

Beauty in the springtime of our days is a gift of heaven; beauty pleases the eyes and brings hope of love. It penetrates our hearts, its sweetness inflaming our souls! My sisters, let us love, and love forever.

Dalila: Je viens célébrer la victoire de celui qui règne en mon cœur. Dalila veut pour son vainqueur encor plus d’amour que de gloire! O mon bien-aimé, suis mes pas vers Soreck la douce vallée, vans cette demeure isolée où Dalila t’ouvre ses bras!

Delilah: (in Samson) I have come to celebrate the victory of the man who reigns over my heart. Delilah longs for her conqueror, longing for love more than glory! My beloved, follow me into the pleasant Valley of Soreck, to that isolated place where Delilah will open her arms to you!

Samson: O, Dieu! Toi qui vois ma faiblesse, prends pitié de ton serviteur! Ferme mes yeux, ferme mon cœur a la douce voix qui me presse!

Samson: Oh God! You know my weakness; have pity on your servant! Close my ears, and close my heart to that sweet voice!

Dalila: Pour toi j’ai couronné mon front des grapes noires du troëne, et mis des roses de Saron dans ma chevelure d’ébène!

Delilah: For you I’ve woven roses of Sharon into my dark hair, and crowned my brow with clusters of cool black grapes!

Vieillard Hebreu: Détourne-toi, mon fils, de son chemin! Évite et crains cette fille étrangère; ferme l’oreille à sa voix mensongère, Et du serpent évite le venin.

Elderly Hebrew Man: My son, turn away from her! Avoid the pagan’s seductive trickery; heed not the enchanting soft voice, and avoid the serpent’s deadly venom.

Samson: Voile ses traits dont la beauté trouble mon sens, trouble mon âme! Et de ses yeux éteins la flamme qui me ravit la liberté!

Samson: Hide her face from me! Her beauty staggers my senses! And her burning glances rob me of my will!


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Dalila: Doux est le muguet parfumé; mes baisers le sont plus encore; et le suc de la mandragore est moins suave ô mon bien-aimé! Ouvre tes bras à ton amante et dépose-la sur ton cœur comme un sachet de douce odeur, dont la senteur est enivrante! Ah!Viens!

Delilah: My kisses are softer than the scented lilies of the valley; and my beloved, the juice of the mandrake is less sweet! Open your arms to your beloved and hold her heart and its soft aroma, whose scent is intoxicating! Ah! Come!

Samson: Flamme ardente qui me dévore, et qu’elle ravive en ce lieu, apaise toi devant mon Dieu, pitié, Seigneur, pour celui qui l’implore!

Samson: Lord, help me obliterate the ardent flame she fans, and have pity on me, Lord, I implore You to have pity!

Vieillard Hebreu: Jamais tes yeux n’auront assez de larmes pour désarmer la colère du ciel!

Elderly Hebrew Woman: You will weep bitter tears, and avoid the wrath of heaven!

The Dance of the Priestesses of Dagon. The Philistine Priestesses wave garlands of flowers, attempting to entice Samson’s Hebrew warriors. Samson tries in vain to avoid Delilah’s glances, and follows all the voluptuous and sensuous gestures of the Philistine Priestesses.

Dalila: Printemps qui commence, portant l’espérance aux cœurs amoureux, ton souffle qui passe de la terre efface les jours malheureux.

Delilah: Spring, you arrive, bringing lovers new hope. Your passing breath erases our unhappy days.

Tout brûle en notre âme, et ta douce flamme vient sécher nos pleurs; tu rends à la terre, par un doux mistère, les fruits et les fleurs.

All souls are on fire. Your gentle flame dries our tears; You restore the earth with your sweet mystery, and bring us fruits and flowers.

En vain je suis belle! Mon cœur plein d’amour, pleurant l’infidèle, attend son retour!

My beauty means nothing! My loving heart weeps for my faithless lover, and awaits his return!


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Vivant d’espérance, mon cœur désolé garde souvenance du bonheur passé.

My grieving heart lives in hope, longing for our past happiness!

À la nuit tombante j’irai triste amante, m’asseoir au torrent, l’attendre en pleurant! Chassant ma tristesse, s’il revient un jour, a lui ma tendresse et la douce ivresse qu’un brûlant amour garde à son retour!

When night falls, sadly I shall wait for my lover, weeping by the river! My sadness will end if he returns one day; I will offer him tenderness and sweet ecstasy, awaiting his return with burning love!

Vieillard Hebreu: L’esprit du mal a conduit cette femme sur ton chemin pour troubler ton repos. De ses regards fuis la brûlante flamme! C’est un poison qui consume les os!

Elderly Hebrew: Evil has led this woman to you, agitating your peace of mind. Escape from the burning flame of her glances! Her poison will consume you!

Dalila: Chassant ma tristesse...

Delilah: My sadness will end if he returns one day...

Delilah casts her enticing glances at Samson, who seems spellbound. In vain, he hesitates and struggles, but his gestures betray his troubled soul; he cannot resist temptation. End of Act I

Samson and Delilah Libretto Act II

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Act II Delilah’s tent in the Valley of Soreck, exotically landscaped with luxurious foliage. Dalila: Samson, recherchant ma présence, ce soir doit venir en ces lieux, voici l’heure de la vengeance qui doit satisfaire nos dieux!

Delilah: Tonight, Samson will seek me, and I will have my hour of revenge that will satisfy our gods!

Amour! Viens aider ma faiblesse! Verse le poison dans son sein! Fais que, vaincu par mon adresse, Samson soit enchaîné demain!

Love! Help me in my weakness! Pour your poison into his breast! Let my wiles conquer him: that Samson will be in chains tomorrow!

Il voudrait en vain de son âme pouvoir me chasser, me bannir! Pourrait-il éteindre la flamme Qu’alimente le souvenir? Il est à moi, c’est mon esclave! Mes frères craignent son courroux; moi seule, entre tous, je le brave et le retiens à mes genoux!

He tried in vain to banish me from his heart! How could he extinguish the flame that burns in his thoughts? He is mine, he is my slave! My people fear his anger; but I alone dare to face him, and keep him at my feet!

Amour! Viens aider ma faiblesse...

Love! Help me in my weakness...

Contre l’amour sa force est vaine; et lui, le fort parmi les forts, lui qui d’un peuple rompt la chaîne succombera sous mes efforts!

His strength is no match against love; he may be the strongest of the strong; he may have broken his people’s chains, but he shall surrender to me!

Distant flashes of lightning signal the arrival of the High Priest of Dagon. Le Grand Prêtre: J’ai gravi la montagne pour venir jusqu’à toi; Dagon qui m’accompagne m’a guidé vers ton toit.

High Priest: I have climbed over the mountain to reach you, guided to your dwelling by Dagon.

Dalila: Salut à vous, mon père! Soyez le bienvenu, vous qu’ici l’on revère!

Delilah: Greetings, my father! Here, you are welcome and revered!


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Grand Prêtre: Notre sort t’est connu, la victoire facile des esclaves hébreux. Leur a livré la ville, nos soldats devant eux ont fui, pleins d’épouvante Au seul nom de Samson, dont l’audace effrayante a troublé leur raison.

High Priest: You know of our defeat. The Hebrew slaves easily conquered the city. Our soldiers have fled in mortal fear of Samson. His dreadful audacity has destroyed their reasoning.

Fatal à notre race, il reçut de son Dieu la force avec l’audace, enchaîné par un vœu, Samson, dès sa naissance, fut marqué par le ciel pour rendre la puissance au peuple d’Israël.

His god gave him the strength and courage to defeat us. From birth, Samson was chosen by heaven. He made a sacred vow with his god to restore power to the people of Israel.

Dalila: Je sais que son courage brave votre courroux, et qu’il n’est pas d’outrage qu’il ne garde pour vous.

Delilah: I know that Samson’s courage is boundless, and he would do anything to defy you.

Grand Prêtre: À tes genoux sa force un jour l’abandonna; mais depuis, il s’efforce d’oublier Dalila. On dit que, dans son âme oubliant ton amour, il se rit de la flamme qui ne dura qu’un jour!

High Priest: Once, when he was in your arms, he lost his will, but since then, he has tried to erase Delilah from his mind. They say that deep in his heart, he has forgotten you, and laughs at the passion that lasted but one day!

Dalila: Je sais que de ses frères ecoutant les discours, et les plaintes amères que causent nos amours, Samson, malgré lui-même, combat et lutte en vain; je sais combien il m’aime, et mon cœur ne craint rien.

Delilah: I have heard the tales that people tell, bitterly reproaching him for loving me, but Samson, in spite of himself, struggles in vain; I know how much he loves me and I fear nothing.

C’est en vain qu’il me brave; il est fort aux combats, mais il est mon esclave et tremble dans mes bras.

He is helpless to resist me. He is mighty in battle, but in my arms, he is my trembling slave.

Grand Prêtre: Sers-nous de ta puissance, prête-nous ton appui! Que, surpris dans défense, il succombe aujourd’hui! Vends-moi ton esclave Samson! Et pour te payer sa rançon, je ne ferai point de promesses; tu peux choisir dans mes richesses.

High Priest: Let your power over him serve our cause! If we surprise him tonight, we can capture him! Sell me your slave Samson! I will pay any ransom; you may choose from all of my riches.

Dalila: Qu’importe à Dalila ton or!

Delilah: Delilah cares nothing for your gold!


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Et que pourrait tout un trésor, si je ne rêvais la vengeance! Toi-même, malgré ta science, je t’ai trompé par cet amour. Samson sut vous dompter un jour; mais il n’a pu me vaincre encore, car, autant que toi, je l’abhore!

There is a greater treasure; I dream only of revenge! I have deceived even you with this love. Samson was able to conquer you, but never me. I despise him as much as you do!

Grand Prêtre: J’aurais dû deviner ta haine et ton dessein! Mon cœur en t’écoutant tressaille d’allegresse, mais sur son cœur déjà n’aurais-tu en vain mesuré ta puissance, essayé ton adresse?

High Priest: I should have known that you hate him! I am delighted with your plot for revenge, but haven’t you already tested your power over him, and failed?

Dalila: Oui, déjà, par trois fois déguisant mon projet, jJ’ai voulu de sa force éclaircir le secret. J’allumai cet amour, espérant qu’à sa flamme je lirais l’inconnu dans le fond de son âme. Mais, par trois fois aussi déjouant mon espoir, il ne s’est point livré, ne m’a rien laissé voir.

Delilah: There were three times that I tried to discover the secret of his strength. I inspired his passion and hoped to learn his secret. But three times, he gave away nothing and revealed nothing

En vain d’un fol amour j’imitai les tendresses! Espérant amollir son cœur par mes caresses! J’ai vu ce fier captif, enlacé dans mes bras, s’arracher de ma couche et courir aux combats!

I pretended to be carried away by love, but it was in vain! I hoped that my caresses would disarm him! I saw the proud captive wrapped in my arms, and then tear himself from my couch and run off to battle!

Aujourd’hui cependant il subit ma puissance car je l’ai vu pâlir, trembler en ma présence; et je sais qu’à cette heure abandonnant les siens, il revient en ces lieux resserrer nos liens. Pour ce dernier combat j’ai préparé mes armes: Samson ne pourra pas résister à mes larmes.

But today he is in my power, because I saw him grow pale and tremble before me; and I know that at this moment he is abandoning his people and is en route to me to renew our bonds. I have prepared for this final assault: Samson will not resist my tears.

Grand Prêtre: Que Dagon, notre Dieu, daigne étendre son bras! Tu combats pour sa gloire et par lui tu vaincras!

High Priest: May our god Dagon extend his arms to you! You fight for his glory, and through him, you will triumph!


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Dalila: Il faut, pour assouvir ma haine, il faut que mon pouvoir l’enchaîne! Je veux que, vaincu par l’amour, il courbe le front à son tour!

Delilah: I must make Samson my prisoner to satisfy my hatred! This time he will be defeated, because he will be overcome by love!

Grand Prêtre: Je veux, pour assouvir ma haine, je veux que Dalila l’enchaîne! Il faut que, vaincu par l’amour, il courbe le front à son tour! En toi seule est mon espérance, a toi l’honneur de la vengeance!

High Priest: Samson must become Delilah’s prisoner to satisfy my hatred! This time he will be defeated because he will become a victim of love! Our hopes rest with you; you shall have the honor of revenge!

Dalila: À moi l’honneur de la vengeance! À moi l’honneur! à moi!

Delilah: I shall have the honor of revenge! The honor is mine!

Grand Prêtre et Dalila: Unissons nous tous deux! Mort au chef des Hébreux!

High Priest and Delilah: Let us stand united! Death to the leader of the Hebrews!

Grand Prêtre: Samson, me disais-tu, dans ces lieux doit se rendre?

High Priest: Did you say that Samson will be here tonight?

Dalila: Je l’attends.

Delilah: I’m waiting for him.

Grand Prêtre: Je m’éloigne, il pourrait nous surprendre. Bientôt je reviendrai par de secrets chemins. Le destin de mon peuple, ô femme, est dans tes mains! Déchire de son cœur l’invulnérable écorce, et surprends le secret qui nous cache sa force.

High Priest: Then I will leave to avoid him. Soon, I will return by a secret route. Woman, the fate of our people rests in your hands! Strip his heart of its invincible armor, and discover the hidden secret of his strength.

The High Priest departs. Delilah soliloquizes dreamily. Dalila: Se pourrait-il, que sur son cœur l’amour eût perdu sa puissance? La nuit est sombre et sans lueur rien ne peut trahir sa présence. Hélas! Il ne vient pas!

Delilah: I wonder if love has lost its power over his heart? The night is dark without a glimmer of light to betray his presence. Too bad! Time is passing!

As Delilah exits, Samson arrives. He hesitates as he glances about the surroundings, clearly disturbed, agitated, troubled, and uncertain. In the distance, there are lightning flashes.


Samson: En ces lieux, malgré moi, m’ont ramené mes pas je voudrais fuir, hélas! Et ne puis pas! Je maudis mon amour et pourtant j’aime encore, fuyons, fuyons ces lieux que ma faiblesse adore!

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Samson: In spite of my will, my steps have led me back here. I long to escape, but I cannot! I curse my love for her, and yet I still love her. I am helpless and cannot flee from this woman whom I adore!

Delilah reappears and rushes to Samson. Dalila: C’est toi! C’est toi, mon bien aimé! J’attendais ta présence! J’oublie, en te voyant, des heures de souffrance! Salut! Salut, ô mon doux maître!

Delilah: It is you, my beloved! I have been waiting for you! Now I can forget all the hours of suffering! Welcome, my sweet master!

Samson: Arrêtes ces transports! Je ne puis t’écouter sans honte et sans remords!

Samson: No more! I cannot listen to you without feeling shame and remorse!

Dalila: Samson, ô toi! Mon bien aimé, pourquoi, repousser ma tendresse? Pourquoi, de mon front parfumé, pourquoi détourner tes caresses?

Delilah: My beloved Samson, why do you shun my affections? Why do you withhold your caresses from my perfumed countenance?

Samson: Tu fus toujours chère à mon cœur, et tu n’en peux être bannie! J’aurais voulu donner ma vie a l’amour qui fit mon bonheur!

Samson: You were always dear to my heart, and my heart cannot banish you! I would gladly have given my life for a love that offered such rapture!

Dalila: Près de moi pourquoi ces alarmes? Aurais-tu douté de mon cœur? N’es-tu pas mon maître et seigneur? L’amour a-t-il perdu ses charmes?

Delilah: Why such fears when you are with me? Do you doubt my heart? Are you not my lord and master? Has my love for you lost its charm?

Samson: Hélas! Escalve de mon Dieu, je subis sa volonté sainte; il faut, par un dernier adieu, rompre sans murmure et sans crainte le doux lien de notre amour.

Samson: I am a servant to my God; I submit to His holy will. This must be our final farewell, because I must break the sweet bonds of love without sighs or regrets.

D’Israël renaît l’espérance! Le Seigneur a marqué le jour qui verra notre délivrance! Il a dit à son serviteur: ”Je t’ai choisi parmi tes frères, pour les guider vers le Seigneur et mettre un terme à leurs misères!”

Israel’s hope is reborn! The Lord has ordained the day of our deliverance! He has said to His servant: “I have chosen you among your brothers to lead them to the Lord and put an end to their suffering!”


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Dalila: Qu’importe à mon cœur désolé le sort d’Israël et sa gloire! Pour moi le bonheur envolé est le seul fruit de la victoire. L’amour égarait ma raison quand je croyais à tes promesses, et je n’ai bu que le poison en m’enivrant de tes caresses!

Delilah: Israel’s glory means nothing to my despairing heart! For me, your victory signals the end of my happiness. My reason was clouded by love, and I believed your promises, and your caresses have intoxicated me like a poison!

Samson: Ah! Cesse d’affliger mon cœur! Je subis une loi suprême, tes pleurs ravivent ma douleur! Dalila! Dalila! Je t’aime!

Samson: Do not cause me more anguish! I obey a supreme law; your tears revive my sorrow! Delilah! I love you!

In the distance, there are flashes of lightning. Dalila: Un dieu plus puissant que le tien, ami, te parle par ma bouche; c’est le dieu d’amour, c’est le mien!

Delilah: A mightier god than yours speaks to you through me; it is the god of love; it is my god!

Et, si ce souvenir te touche, rapelle à ton cœur ces beaux jours passés aux genoux d’une amante que tu devais aimer toujours, et qui seule, hélas! est constante!

If memory still moves you, then remember the happy days spent in the arms of your lover, who you promised to love forever! But now, I am alone, yet faithful to you!

Samson: Insensée! Oser m’accuser! Quand pour toi tout parle à mon âme! Oui! Dût la foudre m’écraser! Dussé-je périr de sa flamme!

Samson: You are insensitive and dare to accuse me! My whole being longs for you! It is true! Let a thunderbolt strike me! Let me perish in its flame!

Pour toi si grand est mon amour, que j’ose aimer malgré Dieu même! Oui! Dussé-je en mourir un jour, Dalila! Dalila! Je t’aime!

My love for you is great, greater than my love for God himself! Yes! Even though one day it may cause my death, Delilah, I love you!

Dalila: Mon cœur s’ouvre à ta voix comme s’ouvre les fleurs aux baisers de l’aurore! Mais, ô mon bien-aimé, pour mieux sécher mes pleurs, que ta voix parle encore!

Delilah: My heart opens to your voice as a flower opens to the kiss of dawn! My beloved, let your loving words dry my tears by speaking of love!


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Dis-moi qu’à Dalila tu reviens pour jamais! Redis à ma tendresse les serments d’autrefois, ces serments que j’aimais! Ah! Réponds à ma tendresse! Verse-moi, verse-moi l’ivresse!

Say that you are returning to Delilah forever! Repeat those tender vows that you made long ago! Surrender to my tenderness! Fill me with ecstasy!

Samson: Dalila! Dalila! Je t’aime!

Samson: Delilah! I love you!

Dalila: Ainsi qu’on voit des blés les épis onduler sous la brise légère, ainsi frémit mon cœur, prêt à se consoler a ta voix qui m’est chère!

Delilah! My heart trembles like the wheat trembling in the gentle breeze, longing for your voice to comfort me!

La flèche est moins rapide à porter le trépas, que ne l’est ton amante à voler dans tes bras!

The arrow is swift to carry death, but your lover is even swifter to fly into your arms!

Ah! Réponds à ma tendresse! Verse-moi, verse-moi l’ivresse!

Surrender to my tenderness! Fill me with ecstasy!

Samson: Par mes baisers je veux sécher tes larmes et de ton cœur éloigner les alarmes. Dalila! Dalila! Je t’aime!

Samson: My sweet caresses will dry your tears and extinguish fear from your heart. Delilah! I love you!

There are flashes of lightning and violent crashes of thunder. Dalila: Mais! Non! Que dis-je, hélas! La triste Dalila doute de tes paroles! Égarant ma raison, tu me trompas déjà par de serments frivoles!

Delilah: But no! The dream ends! Your unhappy Delilah still has doubts! You deceived me before with your false promises!

Samson: Quand pour toi j’ose oublier Dieu, sSa gloire, mon peuple et mon vœu! Ce Dieu qui marqua ma naissance du sceau divin de sa puissance!

Samson: For you, I have dared to forget God, His glory, my people, and my vow! The God who marked my birth with the holy seal of His power!

Dalila: Eh bien! Connais donc mon amour! C’est ton Dieu même que j’envie! Ce Dieu qui te donna le jour, ce Dieu qui consacra ta vie!

Delilah: Well! Then understand the extent of my love! I am jealous of this god of yours! The god who gave you life; the god who consecrated your life!

Le vœu qui t’enchaîne à ce Dieu et qui fait ton bras redoutable, a mon amour fais-en l’aveu, chasse le doute qui m’accable!

What vow binds you to your god and gives you such strength? Confide in me and end the doubt that is torturing me!


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Samson: Dalila! Que veux-tu de moi? Crains que je ne doute de toi!

Samson: Delilah, what do you want of me? Remember that I do not doubt you!

Dalila: Si j’ai conservé ma pussiance, je veux l’essayer en ce jour! Je veux éprouver ton amour, en réclamant ta confiance!

Delilah: I want to test my power over you today! I want you to prove your love by taking me into your confidence!

Lightning and thunder come nearer and nearer. Samson: Hélas! Qu’importe à ton bonheur le lien sacré qui m’enchaîne? Ce secret que garde mon cœur.

Samson: Why should my sacred vow concern you?

Dalila: Par cet aveu soulage ma douleur!

Delilah: Share it with me and ease my anxiety!

Samson: Pour le ravir ta force est vaine!

Samson: You cannot wrest it from me even by force!

Dalila: Oui! Vain est mon pouvoir, car vaine est ta tendresse! Que je veux le savoir, ce secret qui me blesse, dont je veux la moitié, oses-tu, dans ton âme sans honte et sans pitié, m’accuser d’être infâme!

Delilah: Yes, my love has no power over you; your devotion is empty! You dare to treat me so harshly; your secret wounds me, so share it with me and do not suspect me of treachery!

Samson: D’une immense douleur ma pauvre âme accablée, implore le Seigneur d’une voix désolée!

Samson: My heart is burdened and tortured; In my loneliness, I call upon the Lord!

Dalila: J’avais paré pour lui ma jeunesse et mes charmes! Je n’ai plus aujourd’hui qu’à répandre des larmes!

Delilah: I gave you my youth and my beauty! Now nothing is left but my tears!

Samson: Dieu tout puissant, j’invoque ton appui!

Samson: Almighty God, I beg Your help!

Dalila: Pour ces derniers adieux ma voix est impuissante! Fuis! Samson, fuis ces lieux où mourra ton amante!

Delilah: I am powerless, so this must be our final farewell! Flee, Samson, for here your lover shall perish!

Samson: Laisse-moi!

Samson: Leave me!

I keep that secret deep in my heart.


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Dalila: Ton secret!

Delilah: Tell me your secret!

Samson: Je ne puis!

Samson: I cannot!

Dalila: Ton secret? Ce secret qui cause mes larmes!

Delilah: Tell me your secret and calm my fears!

Samson: L’orage sur ces monts déchaîne sa colère! Le Seigneur sur nos fronts fait gronder son tonnerre!

Samson: The storm is unleashing its fury! The Lord’s thunder is crashing above our heads!

Dalila: Je le brave avec toi! Viens!

Delilah: I will face the storm with you! Tell me!

Samson: Non!

Samson: No!

Dalila: Viens!

Delilah: Tell me!

Samson: Laisse-moi!

Samson: Leave me!

Dalila: Qu’importe la foudre!

Delilah: Defy his wrath!

Samson: Je ne puis m’y résoudre c’est la voix de mon Dieu!

Samson: That thunder is the voice of my God!

Dalila: Lâche! Cœur sans amour! Je te méprise! Adieu!

Delilah: Coward! Heartless man! I despise you! Farewell!

The storm erupts in all its fury. As Delilah leaves Samson, he raises his arms to heaven, calling upon his God for help. Then he pursues Delilah and joins her. Philistine soldiers approach Delilah’s tent. Amid tremendous crashes of thunder, Delilah appears before the Philistine soldiers and addresses them. À moi! Philistins! À moi!

Here Philistines! Come here to me!

The soldiers rush inside the tent and apprehend Samson. Samson: Trahison!

Samson: I am betrayed! End of Act II


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Act III - Scene 1 A prison at Gaza. Samson is blinded and shorn of his locks. He is chained to a grinding mill.

Samson: Vois ma misère, hélas! Vois ma détresse! Pitié, Seigneur! Pitié pour ma faiblesse! J’ai détourné mes pas de ton chemin: bientôt de moi tu retiras ta main.

Samson: Oh Lord, look upon my misery! Have pity, Lord, and forgive my weakness! My steps strayed from Your path: and You quickly withdrew your hand.

Je t’offre, ô Dieu, ma pauvre âme brisée! Je ne suis plus qu’un objet de risée! Ils m’ont ravi la lumière du ciel; ils m’ont versé l’amertume et le fiel!

Lord, I offer You my broken spirit! I am nothing but an object of derision! They have blinded me and robbed me of heaven’s light, piling bitterness and gall on me!

Choeur: Samson, qu’as-tu fait de tes frères? Qu’as-tu fait du Dieu de tes pères?

Chorus of Hebrews: (in the distance) Samson, what have you done to your people? Why have you betrayed the God of your fathers?

Samson: Hélas! Israël dans les fers, du ciel attirant la vengeance, a perdu jusqu’à l’espérance par tous les maux qu’il a sofferts!

Samson: Israel is in chains, bound by the vengeance of heaven. All is lost, even hope; what is left is suffering and misfortune!

Que nos tribus à tes yeux trouvent grâce! Daigne à ton peuple épargner la douleur! Apaise-toi devant leurs maux, Seigneur! Toi, dont jamais la pitié ne se lasse!

May our tribes find grace in Your sight! Spare your people further misery! Let their anguish abate Your wrath, for Your mercy is infinite!

Choeur: Dieu nous confiait à ton bras pour nous guider dans les combats. Samson, qu’as-tu fait de tes frères?

Chorus of Hebrews: God entrusted you to lead us into battle. Samson, why have you betrayed the God of your fathers?

Samson: Frères! Votre chant douloureux pénétrant dans ma nuit profonde, d’une angoisse mortelle inonde. Mon cœur coupable et malheureux!

Samson: My people, your mourning chant penetrates the darkness of my blindness; I am overcome with anguish. Anguish floods my guilty heart!

Samson and Delilah Libretto Act III

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Dieu! Prends ma vie en sacrifice pour satisfaire ton courroux. D’Israël détourne tes coups, et je proclame ta justice!

Lord, appease Your wrath by taking my life in sacrifice. Punish me and spare Israel, and I will proclaim Your justice!

Choeur: Pour une femme il nous vendait, de Dalila payant les charmes. Fils de Manoah, qu’as-tu fait de notre sang et de nos larmes?

Chorus: He sold us for a woman; he sold us for Delilah’s favors. Why have you scorned our blood and our tears?

Samson: À tes pieds brisé, mais soumis, je bénis la main qui me frappe. Fais, Seigneur, que ton peuple échappe a la fureur des ennemis!

Samson: Lord, I am at Your feet; I am broken but I am penitent. I bless the hand that smites me. Lord, let Your people escape the fury of their enemies!

Philistines enter and take Samson from the prison. End of Act III - Scene 1


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Act III - Scene 2 The interior of Dagon’s Temple. There is a statue of the pagan god, and an altar where sacrifices are performed. There are two large stone columns that apparently support the building. It is near daybreak and throngs of Philistines occupy the Temple. The High Priest is surrounded by Philistines. Delilah is followed by Philistine women bearing cups of wine. Choeur: L’aube qui blanchit déjà les coteaux, d’une nuit si belle éteint les flambeaux; prolongeons la fête, et malgré l’aurore, aimons encore.

Chorus of Philistines: Continue reveling in love despite the dawn, for love makes us forget every care.

L’amour verse au cœur l’oubli de nos maux. Au vent du matin, l’ombre de la nuit Comme un léger voile à l’horizon fuit.

The morning breeze dispels night’s shadow; its misty veil disappears on the horizon.

L’orient s’empourpre, et sur les montagnes le soleil lui, dardant ses rayons au sein des campagnes.

The East grows red and the sun gleams on the mountains, its rays flashing over the fields.

The Bacchanale (ballet)

Samson enters the Temple, guided by a young boy. Grand Prêtre: Salut! Salut Au juge d’Israël, qui vient par sa présence égayer notre fête! Dalila! Par tes soins qu’une coupe soit prête; Verse à ton amant l’hydromel! Il videra sa coupe en chantant sa maîtresse et sa puissance enchanteresse!

High Priest: (addressing Samson) Hail, Judge of Israel, come here and enliven our celebration! Delilah, prepare a drink for your lover, and let him toast his mistress and her powers of enchantment!

Choeur: Samson! nous buvons avec toi! À Dalila ta souveraine! Vide la coupe sans effroi; l’ivresse dissipe la peine.

Chorus: Samson, we will drink with you! To Delilah, your queen! Drain your cup; intoxication dispels pain.


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Samson: L’âme triste jusqu’à la mort, devant toi, Seigneur, je m’incline; que par ta volonté divine ici s’accomplisse mon sort!

Samson: (aside) My soul is deathly sick. Lord, I kneel before you; may Your divine will now fulfill my destiny!

Dalila: Laisse-moi prendre ta main et te montrer le chemin, comme dans la sombre allée qui conduit à la vallée, le jour où suivant mes pas tu m’enclaçais de tes bras!

Delilah: (approaching Samson) Let me take your hand, and let me show you the way, just as I did on that dark path down to the valley that day you followed me and held me in your arms!

Tu gravissais les montagnes pour arriver jusqu’à moi, et je fuyais mes companges pour être seule avec toi. Souviens-toi de nos ivresses! Souviens-toi de mes caresses!

You climbed mountains to reach me, and I left my companions to be alone with you. Remember our ecstasy! Remember my caresses!

L’amour servait mon projet! Pour assouvir ma vengeance je t’arrachai ton secret: je l’avais vendu d’avance!

Love served me well! It gave me revenge as I wrested your secret from you: I had sold it in advance!

Tu croyais à cet amour, c’est lui qui riva ta chaîne! Dalila venge en ce jour son dieu, son peuple et sa haine!

You believed in our love and it became transformed into your chains! On that day, Delilah avenged her god, her people, and her hatred!

Choeur: Dalila venge en ce jour son dieu, son peuple et sa haine!

Chorus: On that day, Delilah avenged her god, her people, and her hatred!

Samson: Quand tu parlais, je restais sourd; et dans le trouble de mon âme. Hélas! J’ai profané l’amour, en le donnant à cette femme.

Samson: (aside) Lord, when You spoke, I became deaf; my soul was in turmoil. I profaned love by loving that woman.

Grand Prêtre: Allons, Samson, divertis-nous, en redisant à ton amante les doux propos, les chants si doux dont la passion s’alimente.

High Priest: Samson, entertain us by repeating what you told your lover; the honeyed words and sweet songs of passion.

Que Jéhovah compatissant a tes yeux rende la lumière! Je servirai ce Dieu puissant, s’il peut éxaucer ta prière! Mais incapable à servir, ce Dieu, que tu nommes ton père, je puis l’outrager, le haïr, en me riant de sa colère!

Let your merciful Jehovah restore your eyesight! I, too, will serve that mighty god if he answers your prayer! But the god you call Father is powerless to help you. I scorn him, I hate him, and I laugh at his wrath!


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Samson: Tu permets, ô Dieu d’Israël! Que ce prêtre imposteur outrage, dans sa fureur dans sa rage, ton nom, à la face du ciel!

Samson: God of Israel, will You allow this false priest to insult You and revile Your name before heaven itself?

Que ne puis-je venger ta gloire, et par un prodige éclatant retrouver pour un seul instant les yeux, la force et la victoire!

Let me avenge Your glory by granting me one miracle: for a single moment, give me back my sight, my strength, and the power to triumph!

Choeur: Ha! Ha! Ha! Rions de sa fureur! Dans ta rage impuissante, Samson, tu n’y vois pas! Prends garde à tes pas! Samson! Sa colère est plaisante! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Chorus: (mocking Samson) Ha! Ha! Ha! We laugh at his fury! Samson, you do not frighten us with your impotent rage! Be careful where you walk! Samson! You are a weakling! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Grand Prêtre: Viens, Dalila, rendre grâce à nos dieux qui font trembler Jéhovah dans les cieux! Du grand Dagon consultons les auspices; versons pour lui le vin des sacrifices.

High Priest: Come, Delilah, let us give thanks to our gods because they made Jehovah tremble! Let us consult the oracles of great Dagon and offer him sacrificial wine.

Delilah and the High Priest move toward the sacrifical table upon which there are sacred bowls. A fire burns on the flowered altar. Delilah and the High Priest pour the contents of the bowls on the sacred fire; it flames up, disappears, and then reappears. Samson stands with the boy who guides him, overwhelmed by grief, and seemingly absorbed in prayer.


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Gran Prêtre et Dalila: Gloire à Dagon vainqueur! Il aidait ta faiblesse, inspirant à ton cœur et la force et l’adresse.

High Priest and Delilah: Praise Dagon, the conqueror! He helps the weak, the fainthearted, and is a force of hope.

O toi! Le plus grand entre tous! Toi qui fis la terre où nous sommes, que ton esprit soit avec nous, o maître des dieux et des hommes!

You are the ruler of the world! You created the earth and the stars. Master of gods and men, may your spirit be with us!

Choeur: Marqué d’un signe nos longs troupeaux; mûris la vigne sur nos coteaux; rends à la plaine notre moisson que, dans sa haine, brûla Samson!

Chorus: Grant us flourishing fields and flocks; let every village destroyed by our hated foe Samson overflow with wealth!

Grand Prêtre et Dalila: Reçois sur nos autels le sang de nos victimes, que t’offrent des mortels pour expier leurs crimes.

High Priest and Delilah: Upon our altars accept the blood of our victims in order to expiate our sins.

Aux yeux de tes prêtres divins, pouvant seuls contempler ta face, montre l’avenir qui se cache aux regards des autres humains!

Reveal to your priests who shall behold your glory, and the dark mystery of the future and our hidden destiny!

Choeur: Dieu, sois propice a nos destins! Que ta justice aux Philistins! Donne la gloire dans les combats; que la victoire suive nos pas!

Chorus: God, hear our prayers in your temple! Let justice reign for the Philistines! Protect us day and night, and grant us victory in battle!

Grand Prêtre, Dalila, Choeur: Dagon se révèle! La flamme nouvelle sur l’autel renaît de la cendre; l’immortel pour nous va descendre! C’est le dieu qui par sa présence montre sa puissance! Ah! L’immortel, pour nous va descendre!

High Priest, Delilah, Chorus: Dagon reveals himself! A new flame springs up, burning bright amid the ashes; the immortal one descends to us! It is the powerful god we worship who now appears to us! Ah! The immortal one descends to us!

Grand Prêtre: Pour que le sort soit favorable allons, Samson, viens avec nous, a Dagon, le dieu redoutable, offrir ta coupe à deux genoux!

High Priest: (to Samson) Samson, bring us a favorable omen; bend your knee and offer your cup to Dagon! (to the boy) Lead him to the center of the temple so that everyone can see him.

Guidez ses pas vers le milieu du temple, pour que de loin le peuple le contemple.


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Samson: Seigneur, inspire-moi, ne m’abandonne pas! Vers les piliers de marbre, enfant, guide mes pas!

Samson: Lord, inspire me; do not abandon me! (to the boy) Lead me to the pillar,

Choeur: Dagon se révèle! La flamme nouvelle sur l’autel renaît de la cendre; l’immortel pour nous va descendre! C’est le dieu qui par sa présence montre sa puissance en ce lieu!

Chorus: Dagon reveals himself! A new flame springs up, burning bright amid the ashes; the immortal one descends to us! It is the powerful god we worship who now appears to us, all his people fearing his staff!

Dieu, sois propice a nos destins! Que ta justice aux Philistins! Donne la gloire dans les combats; que la victoire suive nos pas!

God, hear our prayers in your temple! Let justice reign for the Philistines! Protect us day and night, and grant us victory in battle!

Devant toi l’Israël disparaît l’insolence! Nos bras guidés par ton esprit, dans les combats ou par tes charmes, ont vaincu ce peuple maudit, bravant ta colère et tes armes. Gloire à Dagon!

Before you, Israel’s insolence was vanquished! Our arms are strengthened and our spirits are renewed; you protected us in battle, and through your wonders, brought this accursed nation of Israel to servitude. Praise Dagon!

Samson stands between the two pillars. Samson: Souviens-toi de ton serviteur, qu’ils ont privé de la lumière! Daigne pour un instant, Seigneur, m e rendre ma force première! Qu’avec toi je me venge, ô Dieu! En les écrasant en ce lieu!

Samson: Lord, remember Your servant, who they have robbed of sight! For one instant, Lord, restore my former strength! Let me avenge myself and You, Oh Lord! Let me destroy them here in their temple!

Samson pushes the pillars and they break. The entire Temple collapses, killing Samson and all the Philistines. End of opera

Discography

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Discography


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Discography

1946

Bouvier (Delilah); Luccioni (Samson); Cabanel (High Priest); Cambon (Abimelech); Médius (Old Hebrew); Paris Opera Orchestra and Chorus; Fourestier (Conductor)

1962

Gorr (Delilah); Vickers (Samson); Blanc (High Priest); Diakov (Abimelech and High Priest); René Duclos Orchestra and Chorus; Prêtre (Conductor)

1073

Ludwig (Delilah); King (Samson); Weikl (High Priest); Malta (Abimelech); Kogel (Old Hebrew); Bavarian Radio Orchestra and Chorus; Patané (Conductor)

1978

Obraztsova (Delilah); Domingo (Samson); Bruson (High Priest); Thau (Abimelech); Lloyd (Old Hebrew); Chorus and Orchestre de Paris; Barenboim (Conductor)

1989

Baltsa (Delilah); Carreras (Samson); Summers (High Priest); Estes (Abimelech); Burchuladze (Old Hebrew); Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus; Davis (Conductor)

1998

Borodina (Delilah); Cura (Samson); La Font (High Priest); London Symphony; Davis (Conductor)

1998

Borodina (Delilah); Domingo (Samson); Leiferkus (High Priest); Metropolitan Opera; Levine (Conductor)

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Videography

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Videography


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Videography

Castle VHS (1981 Covent Garden production) Verrett (Delilah); Vickers (Samson); Summers (High Priest); Tomlinson (Abimelech); Howell (Old Hebrew); Royal Opera House Chorus and Orchestra; Colin Davis (Conductor); Elijah Moshinsky (Director); John Vernon (Video Director) Virgin VHS (1981 San Francisco Opera production) Verrett (Delilah); Domingo (Samson); Brendel (High Priest); Voketatis (Abimelech); Langan (Old Hebrew); San Francisco Opera Chorus and Orchestra; Julius Rudel (Conductor); Nicholas Joel (Director); Kirk Browning (Video Director) DG DVD (1998 Metropolitan Opera production) Borodina (Delilah); Domingo (Samson); Leiferkus (High Priest); Fink (Abimelech); Pape (Old Hebrew); Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus; James Levine (Conductor) Elijah Moshinsky (Production); Peter McClintock (Stage Director); Brian Large (Video Director)

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DICTIONARY OF OPERA AND MUSICAL TERMS Accelerando - Play the music faster, but gradually. Adagio - At a slow or gliding tempo, not as slow as largo, but not as fast as andante. Agitato - Restless or agitated. Allegro - At a brisk or lively tempo, faster than andante but not as fast as presto. Andante - A moderately slow, easy-going tempo. Appoggiatura - An extra or embellishing note preceding a main melodic note. Usually written as a note of smaller size; it shares the time value of the main note. Arabesque - Flourishes or fancy patterns usually applying to vocal virtuosity. Aria - A solo song usually structured in a formal pattern. Arias generally convey reflective and introspective thoughts rather than descriptive action. Arietta - A shortened form of aria. Arioso - A musical passage or composition having a mixture of free recitative and metrical song. Arpeggio - Producing the tones of a chord in succession rather than simultaneously. Atonal - Music that is not anchored in traditional musical tonality; it does not use the diatonic scale and has no keynote or tonal center. Ballad opera - Eighteenth-century English opera consisting of spoken dialogue and music derived from popular ballad and folksong sources. The most famous is The Beggar’s Opera, which is a satire of the Italian opera seria. Bar - A vertical line across the stave that divides the music into measures. Baritone - A male singing voice ranging between bass and tenor. Baroque - A style of artistic expression prevalent in the 17th and early 18th centuries that is marked by the use of complex forms, bold ornamentation, and florid decoration. The Baroque period extends from approximately 1600 to 1750 and includes the works of the original creators of modern opera, the Camerata, as well as the later works by Bach and Handel.


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Bass - The lowest male voice, usually divided into categories such as: Basso buffo - A bass voice that specializes in comic roles: Dr. Bartolo in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. Basso cantante - A bass voice that demonstrates melodic singing quality: King Philip in Verdi’s Don Carlo. Basso profundo - the deepest, most profound, or most dramatic of bass voices: Sarastro in Mozart’s The Magic Flute. th

Bel canto - Literally, “beautiful singing.” It originated in Italian opera of the 17 and th 18 centuries and stressed beautiful tones produced with ease, clarity, purity, and evenness, together with an agile vocal technique and virtuosity. Bel canto flourished in th the first half of the 19 century in the works of Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti. Cabaletta - A lively, concluding portion of an aria or duet. The term is derived from the Italian word “cavallo,” or horse: it metaphorically describes a horse galloping to the finish line. Cadenza - A flourish or brilliant part of an aria (or concerto) commonly inserted just before a finale. It is usually performed without accompaniment. Camerata - A gathering of Florentine writers and musicians between 1590 and 1600 who attempted to recreate what they believed was the ancient Greek theatrical synthesis of drama, music, and stage spectacle; their experimentation led to the creation of the early structural forms of modern opera. Cantabile - An indication that the singer should sing sweetly. Cantata - A choral piece generally containing Scriptural narrative texts: the St. Matthew Passion of Bach. Cantilena - Literally, “little song.” A lyrical melody meant to be played or sung “cantabile,” or with sweetness and expression. Canzone - A short, lyrical operatic song usually containing no narrative association with the drama but rather simply reflecting the character’s state of mind: Cherubino’s “Voi che sapete” in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. Castrato - A young male singer who was surgically castrated to retain his treble voice. Cavatina - A short aria popular in 18th and 19th century opera that usually heralded the entrance of a principal singer.


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Classical Period - A period roughly between the Baroque and Romantic periods, the late 18th through the early 19th centuries. Stylistically, the music of the period stresses clarity, precision, and rigid structural forms. Coda - A trailer added on by the composer after the music’s natural conclusion. The coda serves as a formal closing to the piece. Coloratura - Literally, “colored”: it refers to a soprano singing in the bel canto tradition. It is a singing technique that requires great agility, virtuosity, embellishments and ornamentation: The Queen of the Night’s aria, “Zum Leiden bin ich auserkoren,” from Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Commedia dell’arte - A popular form of dramatic presentation originating in Renaissance Italy in which highly stylized characters were involved in comic plots involving mistaken identities and misunderstandings. Two of the standard characters were Harlequin and Colombine: The “play within a play” in Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci. Comprimario - A singer who performs secondary character roles such as confidantes, servants, and messengers. Continuo, Basso continuo - A bass part (as for a keyboard or stringed instrument) that was used especially in baroque ensemble music; it consists of an independent succession of bass notes that indicate the required chords and their appropriate harmonies. Also called figured bass, thoroughbass. Contralto - The lowest female voice, derived from “contra” against, and “alto” voice; a voice between the tenor and mezzo-soprano. Countertenor - A high male voice generally singing within the female high soprano ranges. Counterpoint - The combination of two or more independent melodies into a single harmonic texture in which each retains its linear character. The most sophisticated form of counterpoint is the fugue form, in which from two to six melodies can be used; the voices are combined, each providing a variation on the basic theme but each retaining its relation to the whole. Crescendo - A gradual increase in the volume of a musical passage. Da capo - Literally, “from the top”; repeat. Early 17th-century da capo arias were in the form of A B A, with the second A section repeating the first, but with ornamentation. Deus ex machina - Literally “god out of a machine.” A dramatic technique in which a person or thing appears or is introduced suddenly and unexpectedly; it provides a contrived solution to an apparently insoluble dramatic difficulty.


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Diatonic - A major or minor musical scale that comprises intervals of five whole steps and two half steps. Diminuendo - Gradually becoming softer; the opposite of crescendo. Dissonance - A mingling of discordant sounds that do not harmonize within the diatonic scale. Diva - Literally, “goddess”; generally the term refers to a leading female opera star who either possesses, or pretends to possess, great rank. Dominant - The fifth tone of the diatonic scale; in the key of C, the dominant is G. Dramatic soprano or tenor - A voice that is powerful, possesses endurance, and is generally projected in a declamatory style. Dramma giocoso - Literally, “amusing (or humorous) drama.” An opera whose story combines both serious and comic elements: Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Falsetto - A lighter or “false” voice; an artificially-produced high singing voice that extends above the range of the full voice. Fioritura - It., “flowering”; a flowering ornamentation or embellishment of the vocal line within an aria. Forte, fortissimo - Forte (f) means loud; mezzo forte (mf) is fairly loud; fortissimo (ff) is even louder; additional fff’s indicate greater degrees of loudness. Glissando - Literally, “gliding.” A rapid sliding up or down the scale. Grand opera - An opera in which there is no spoken dialogue and the entire text is set to music, frequently treating serious and tragic subjects. Grand opera flourished in France in the 19th century (Meyerbeer); the genre is epic in scale and combines spectacle, large choruses, scenery, and huge orchestras. Heldentenor - A tenor with a powerful dramatic voice who possesses brilliant top notes and vocal stamina. Heldentenors are well suited to heroic (Wagnerian) roles: Lauritz Melchior in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. Imbroglio - Literally, “intrigue”; an operatic scene portraying chaos and confusion, with appropriate diverse melodies and rhythms. Largo or larghetto - Largo indicates a very slow tempo, broad and with dignity. Larghetto is at a slightly faster tempo than largo.


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Legato - Literally, “tied” or “bound”; successive tones that are connected smoothly. The opposite of legato is staccato (short and plucked tones.) Leitmotif - Literally, “leading motive.” A musical fragment characterizing a person, thing, feeling, or idea that provides associations when it recurs. Libretto - Literally, “little book”; the text of an opera. Lied - A German song; the plural is “lieder.” Originally, a German art song of the late 18th century. Lyric - A voice that is light and delicate. Maestro - From the Italian “master”; a term of respect to conductors, composers, directors, and great musicians. Melodrama - Words spoken over music. Melodrama appears in Beethoven’s Fidelio th and flourished during the late 19 century in the operas of Massenet (Manon and Werther). Mezza voce - Literally, “medium voice”; singing with medium or half volume. It is sometimes intended as a vocal means to intensify emotion. Mezzo-soprano - A woman’s voice with a range between soprano and contralto. Obbligato - An accompaniment to a solo or principal melody that is usually played by an important, single instrument. Octave - A musical interval embracing eight diatonic degrees; from C to C is an octave. Opera - Literally, “work”; a dramatic or comic play in which music is the primary vehicle that conveys its story. Opera buffa - Italian comic opera that flourished during the bel canto era. Highlighting the opera buffa genre were buffo characters who were usually basses singing patter songs: Dr. Bartolo in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville; Dr. Dulcamara in Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love. Opéra comique - A French opera characterized by spoken dialogue interspersed between the musical numbers, as opposed to grand opera in which there is no spoken dialogue. Opéra comique subjects can be either comic or tragic. Operetta, or light opera - Operas that contain comic elements and generally a light romantic plot: Strauss’s Die Fledermaus, Offenbach’s La Périchole, and Lehar’s The Merry Widow. In operettas, there is usually much spoken dialogue, dancing, practical jokes, and mistaken identities.


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Oratorio - A lengthy choral work, usually of a religious nature and consisting chiefly of recitatives, arias, and choruses, but performed without action or scenery: Handel’s Messiah. Ornamentation - Extra embellishing notes—appoggiaturas, trills, roulades, or cadenzas—that enhance a melodic line. Overture - The orchestral introduction to a musical dramatic work that sometimes incorporates musical themes within the work. Overtures are instrumental pieces that are generally performed independently of their respective operas in concert. Parlando - Literally, “speaking”; the imitation of speech while singing, or singing that is almost speaking over the music. Parlando sections are usually short and have minimal orchestral accompaniment. Patter song - A song with words that are rapidly and quickly delivered. Figaro’s “Largo al factotum” in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville is a patter song. Pentatonic - A five-note scale. Pentatonic music is most prevalent in Far Eastern countries. Piano - A performance indication for soft volume. Pitch - The property of a musical tone that is determined by the frequency of the waves producing it. Pizzicato - An indication that notes are to be played by plucking the strings instead of stroking the string with the bow. Polyphony - Literally, “many voices.” A style of musical composition in which two or more independent melodies are juxtaposed; counterpoint. Polytonal - Several tonal schemes used simultaneously. Portamento - A continuous gliding movement from one tone to another through all the intervening pitches. Prelude - An orchestral introduction to an act or a whole opera that precedes the opening scene. Presto, prestissimo - Vigorous, and with the utmost speed. Prima donna - Literally, “first lady.” The female star or principal singer in an opera cast or opera company.


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Prologue - A piece sung before the curtain goes up on the opera proper: Tonio’s Prologue in Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci. Quaver - An eighth note. Range - The span of tonal pitch of a particular voice: soprano, mezzo-soprano, contralto, tenor, baritone, and bass. Recitative - A formal device used to advance the plot. It is usually sung in a rhythmically free vocal style that imitates the natural inflections of speech; it conveys the dialogue and narrative in operas and oratorios. Secco, or dry, recitative is accompanied by harpsichord and sometimes with other continuo instruments; accompagnato indicates that the recitative is accompanied by the orchestra. Ritornello - A refrain, or short recurrent instrumental passage between elements of a vocal composition. Romanza - A solo song that is usually sentimental; it is shorter and less complex than an aria and rarely deals with terror, rage, or anger. Romantic Period - The Romantic period is usually considered to be between the early 19th and early 20th centuries. Romanticists found inspiration in nature and man. Von Weber’s Der Freischütz and Beethoven’s Fidelio (1805) are considered the first German Romantic operas; many of Verdi’s operas as well as the early operas of Wagner are also considered Romantic operas. Roulade - A florid, embellished melody sung to one syllable. Rubato - An expressive technique, literally meaning “robbed”; it is a fluctuation of tempo within a musical phrase, often against a rhythmically steady accompaniment. Secco - “Dry”; the type of accompaniment for recitative played by the harpsichord and sometimes continuo instruments. Semitone - A half step, the smallest distance between two notes. In the key of C, the half steps are from E to F and from B to C. Serial music - Music based on a series of tones in a chosen pattern without regard for traditional tonality. Sforzando - Sudden loudness and force; it must stand out from the texture and be emphasized by an accent. Singspiel - Literally, “song drama.” Early German style of opera employing spoken dialogue between songs: Mozart’s The Magic Flute.


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Soprano - The highest range of the female voice ranging from lyric (light and graceful quality) to dramatic (fuller and heavier in tone). Sotto voce - Literally, “below the voice”; sung softly between a whisper and a quiet conversational tone. Soubrette - A soprano who sings supporting roles in comic opera: Adele in Strauss’s Die Fledermaus; Despina in Mozart’s Così fan tutte. Spinto - From the Italian “spingere” (to push); a singer with lyric vocal qualities who “pushes” the voice to achieve heavier dramatic qualities. Sprechstimme - Literally, “speaking voice.” The singer half sings a note and half speaks; the declamation sounds like speaking but the duration of pitch makes it seem almost like singing. Staccato - Short, clipped, detached, rapid articulation; the opposite of legato. Stretto - Literally, “narrow.” A concluding passage performed in a quick tempo to create a musical climax. Strophe - Strophe is a rhythmic system of repeating lines. A musical setting of a strophic text is characterized by the repetition of the same music for all strophes. Syncopation - A shifting of the beat forward or back from its usual place in the bar; a temporary displacement of the regular metrical accent in music caused typically by stressing the weak beat. Supernumerary - A “super”; a performer with a non-singing and non-speaking role: “Spear-carrier.” Symphonic poem - A large orchestral work in one continuous movement, usually narrative or descriptive in character: Franz Liszt’s Les Preludes; Richard Strauss’s Don Juan, Till Eulenspiegel, and Ein Heldenleben. Tempo - The speed at which music is performed. Tenor - The highest natural male voice. Tessitura - The usual range of a voice part. Tonality - The organization of all the tones and harmonies of a piece of music in relation to a tonic (the first tone of its scale).


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Tone poem - An orchestral piece with a program. Tonic - The principal tone of the key in which a piece is written. C is the tonic of C major. Trill - Two adjacent notes rapidly and repeatedly alternated. Tutti - All together. Twelve-tone - The twelve chromatic tones of the octave placed in a chosen fixed order and constituting, with some permitted permutations and derivations, the melodic and harmonic material of a serial musical piece. Each note of the chromatic scale is used as part of the melody before any other note is repeated. Verismo - Literally “truth”; the artistic use of contemporary everyday material in preference to the heroic or legendary in opera. A movement particularly in Italian opera during the late 19th and early 20th centuries: Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana. Vibrato - A “vibration”; a slightly tremulous effect imparted to vocal or instrumental tone to enrich and intensify sound, and add warmth and expressiveness through slight and rapid variations in pitch.


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