‘Who wants to hear Samson et Dalila?’ Bernard Shaw asked rhetorically (in typically lordly fashion) after a concert version of Camille Saint-Saëns’s opera in 1893, the first time it was presented in Britain. ‘I respectfully suggest, Nobody.’ So Shavianly sure was the comic-curmudgeon that he left after Act Two.

Clearly, enough Melburnians did want to hear Saint-Saëns’s sole abiding opera to fill the Palais Theatre’s capacious stalls on Sunday afternoon – the first of two performances by Melbourne Opera, which continues to broaden its local following as the national company retreats from Melbourne.

Saint-Saëns remains the most widely performed French composer of the second half of the nineteenth century. Endlessly prolific (there are eleven other operas, all unknown), he composed in all genres. He said once that he wrote music ‘as an apple tree produces apples’. A supreme technician, he admired order, control, precision, all evident in his famous opera, which is based on the story of Samson and Delilah as told in Chapter 16 of the Book of Judges.

The work itself was twenty-five years in the making. Saint-Saëns intended to use the biblical story as an oratorio, but Ferdinand Lemaire persuaded him to turn it into an opera. Lemaire’s libretto was banal, platitudinous. The composer – poet, philosopher, archaeologist, playwright – would surely have done better himself.

Saint-Saëns began by composing Act Two (‘I don’t know why,’ he later admitted). He created the role of Dalila for Pauline Viardot (to whom the opera is dedicated) and gave a private performance of Act Two with Viardot in 1875. ‘Ah! Que c’est beau,’ said the composer. His friends demurred, and the unfinished opera languished. No opera house wanted to touch the biblical story. Franz Liszt encouraged Saint-Saëns to persevere, and in 1877 the opera had its première at the Grand Ducal Theatre in Weimar. It was not until 1892 that the work was heard at the Paris Opéra, where it soon became a favourite. By the time of Saint-Saëns’s death in 1921, aged eighty-six, Samson et Dalila had been performed five hundred times at the Opéra (only Faust and Rigoletto were played more often).

The story is set in Gaza circa 1150 BCE. The opera is in three acts (here, the first two are run together). Samson, the Hebrew warrior, leads a revolt against the Philistines. Dalila, a famous beauty, is encouraged by the High Priest of Dagon to seduce Samson and discover the secret of his power.

Opportunities to hear this opera are relatively few. I first heard it in 1983, when it became the first full-scale production in the recently opened Victorian Arts Centre, with Richard Divall conducting the Kenneth Rowell production, and Anthony Roden and Margreta Elkins as the lovers. This was somewhat controversial, in a prurient kind of way, because of nude moments in the Bacchanale, whose pastiche Eastern music culminates in a busy orgy.

Dancers in Samson et Dalila (photographs courtesy of Melbourne Opera)

Suzanne Chaundy directs the new production. In her program note, Chaundy states that she has ‘approached this production of Samson et Dalila very much as a psychological/abstract reading. It is not being set like a Cecil B. DeMille biblical extravaganza. For me the story is most compelling when focusing on the broader themes of power, obsession, faith and betrayal.’

Perhaps sensibly at this volatile time, Chaundy eschews any focus on the rights and wrongs of specific religions and the conflicts arising from them (Act Two is set in Gaza). Chaundy continues: ‘This is an abstract and minimalist staging of a very lush and evocative score. I see Act One as a non-naturalistic portrayal of the situation presented in an almost dreamlike and emblematic state.’ At the outset, Chaundy introduces the lovers, with Dalila beguiling Samson, previsioning events that lead to his being shorn, blinded, and tied to the millstone at the start of Act Three.

The oratorio-like nature of this work suits Chaundy’s measured, rather introspective production.

Jacob Battista’s set designs are spare, balanced, sensible. They don’t break the bank, and they don’t collapse. Two pillars are separated by ramps with a small circular platform on which the action, such as it is, takes place. During Act Two, a curtain is partially unfurled to suggest the opulence and decadence of Dalila’s wiles. Harry Cope’s lighting design is sympathetic: subtle and unobtrusive.

The musically masterful Bacchanale, never dull, was well done. The seven dancers, under Movement and Intimacy Director Lisa Petty’s lively direction, keep their flimsy kit on throughout. This is 2025 after all, not those brazen 1980s, not to mention antiquity.

The Melbourne Opera chorus was in good form. Here, Chaundy uses them like a Greek chorus, ‘commenting on, and at times participating in, the action. This way they shift easily from Hebrew to Philistine as the opera requires.’ The chorus has much work to do in this opera. The Israelite choruses in Act One remind us of Bach and Handel, whom Saint-Saëns championed.

Raymond Lawrence conducted with his usual authority. The orchestra played handsomely (especially at the start of Act Three), but the unusual disposition of the orchestra at the rear of the stage, behind the principals and beneath the elevated chorus, sapped  the true voluptuousness and heft of Saint-Saëns’s score.

The principals were fine. It’s hard to recall a stronger performance from Rosario La Spina. He has sung Samson before, and it showed; this seems to be a natural role for him. From the outset, La Spina was in clarion voice, filling the Palais with Samson’s ardent, anguished outpourings. Act Three, which belongs to Samson, was memorably sung. La Spina – very still, imposing, intense – acted the part well.

Deborah Humble, who has given us memorable performances in recent years – several of them with Melbourne Opera – was Dalila, whose three superlative arias comprise one of the great platforms for any mezzo-soprano with luxurious notes, dramatic instincts, and physical confidence. Humble sang with her customary richness and beauty of tone. Dalila’s wide tessitura tested her at time, but this was another impressive performance from Humble. She was at her best in the busy ensemble at the end, before Samson resolves to tear down the house.

Act Two contains some of the most seductive music in all opera, not just the French school. (Congratulations to anyone who manages to refrain from humming ‘Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix’ for the next fortnight.) The languorous duet that unfolds was magnificently sung and acted.

Simon Meadows, a company veteran, was a commanding, resonant High Priest, excellent in the vituperative scenes with Dalila when they execrate Samson and plot his downfall. Jeremy Kleeman, reliably good, was an expressive and forceful Abimelech until he was summarily and somewhat clumsily dispatched by Samson.

In all, this is another admirable, needed production from Melbourne’s indispensable opera company.

Samson et Dalila (Melbourne Opera) will be repeated at the Palais Theatre on 3 June 2025. Performance attended: June 1.