Samson et Dalila

For 3,000 years, the names Samson and Delilah have symbolized reckless strength, ruthless cunning, and the inescapability of desire. When Camille Saint-Saëns, one of the leading composers of 19th-century France, decided to bring their story to the operatic stage, he had the perfect musical means to do so. Calling for a huge orchestra and a chorus of nearly 100 singers, Saint-Saëns built a mighty wall of sound that perfectly embodies Samson’s miraculous strength. With his gift for lush melodies, Saint-Saëns crafted soaring tunes that give voice to Delilah’s exquisite beauty. Sacred, scandalous, and irresistibly seductive, Samson et Dalila is now considered the pinnacle of French Romanticism.

Darko Tresnjak’s staging, first seen on Opening Night of the Met’s 2018–19 season, uses abstract geometric shapes to bridge the ancient Middle East and the modern world. Through extravagant choreography, massive sculptural set pieces, and vibrant colors, this towering production evokes the exotic, the crass, the sensual, and even the sublimely spiritual. These qualities are compounded by the work’s conflicting themes of love and duty, belonging and independence, and tenderness and rage, which form the story’s beating heart. In Tresnjak’s creative vision, Samson et Dalila is a sumptuous extravaganza, a spectacle sure to delight and thrill audiences of all ages.

This guide considers Samson et Dalila both in the context of its creation and through the many afterlives of its source material. Saint-Saëns’s adaptation of the biblical legend provides an opportunity for students to engage with the myriad ways this timeless story has been adapted across time, space, and medium—as well as to create their own versions. The composer’s interest in “exotic” musical cultures, meanwhile, becomes a gateway to learning and practicing Arabic musical traditions on their own terms and as they manifest in the opera’s score. In addition to preparing students to engage confidently and enthusiastically with Saint-Saëns’s opera, these materials will ultimately lead them to reflect on broader questions about faith, desire, and power.

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An opera in three acts, sung in French

Music by Camille Saint-Saëns

Libretto by Ferdinand Lemaire

First performed December 2, 1877, at the Grand Ducal Theater, Weimar, Germany
Darko Tresnjak, Production

Alexander Dodge, Set Designer

Linda Cho, Costume Designer

Donald Holder, Lighting Designer

Austin McCormick, Choreographer

Tilman Michael, C. Graham Berwind, III Chorus Director
Clay Hilley
SAMSON

Aigul Akhmetshina
DALILA

Quinn Kelsey
HIGH PRIEST

Alfred Walker
ABIMELÉCH

Morris Robinson
OLD HEBREW

Giacomo Sagripanti
CONDUCTOR
The Metropolitan Opera Educator Guides offer a creative, interdisciplinary introduction to opera. Designed to complement existing classroom curricula in music, the humanities, STEM fields, and the arts, these guides will help young viewers confidently engage with opera regardless of their prior experience with the art form.

On the following pages, you’ll find an array of materials designed to encourage critical thinking, deepen background knowledge, and empower students to engage with the opera. These materials can be used in classrooms and/or via remote-learning platforms, and they can be mixed and matched to suit your students’ individual academic needs.

Above all, this guide is intended to help students explore Samson et Dalila through their own experiences and ideas. The diverse perspectives that your students bring to opera make the art form infinitely richer, and we hope that they will experience opera as a space where their confidence can grow and their curiosity can flourish.