By ANDY GARRIGUE
An aerial performance during Samson and Delilah, which opens Virginia Opera’s season at Dominion Arts Center
With timeless themes of persecution, desire, betrayal and revenge, Camille Saint-Saens’ “Samson and Delilah” has all the elements for wrenching drama, beguiling seduction and shocking violence that one could wish for in an opera.
Virginia Opera’s presentation of this biblical story recast in a more modern era at the Carpenter Theatre in the Dominion Arts Center on Friday evening ultimately delivers on this potential for visual spectacle, but takes a slow path to get there.
The curtain rises on a set dominated by a temple door of an epic scale, nearly three stories high. A crowd, shrouded in darkness, has gathered outside its doors, protesting their persecution. A leader emerges, urging those gathered to maintain their faith. It is Samson, a Hebrew of prodigious strength.
From the start, Derek Taylor as Samson exhibits a rich clear tenor with world-class power and masterfully controlled sustain. A Philistine, Abimelech, arrives, all arch-villainy, artfully wielding a cane, threatening the crowd, disrespectful of their heritage. Rubin Casas fills the role with charisma, his bass impressive and commanding. His mockery enrages Samson, and the tables are quickly turned.
This has the making of a great scene: an angry oppressed mob, hateful enemies, a murder to ensue, according to the program. But we are left with a sense of what might have been.
The stage remains mostly in muted darkness, movements are stylized and slow, and the murder, supposed to be at the hands of the herculean Samson, seems closer to a suicide by a man under a strange spell. Samson has exhibited no physical strength, but appears to have an ability to summon powers over people, an altogether different thing.
Delilah appears in the next scene, as the leader of a group of flirtatious mean girls, appearing to be wealthy socialites in fashionable dresses, sunglasses and stylish hats. Rather than exuding heat, as one might expect of a legendary temptress, Katharine Goeldner as Delilah is stately, detached and, as we will find out later, in fact, cold as ice.
With bull’s-eye pitch and exquisitely controlled dynamics, Goeldner’s voice shines throughout, with her upper register occasionally blasting through with great dramatic effect.
The second act boasts another impressive set on an epic scale. Delilah and the High Priest of Dagon plot the demise of Samson. Michael Chioldi as the Priest offers an earth-rumbling baritone with peals of power and an artist’s precision.
Two love scenes in the act are racy, bold, even shocking. The legendary haircut, when Samson loses his physical powers, however, is underwhelming.
The second scene of the third act, known as the Bacchanale, exponentially raises the visual aspect of the production. Saint-Saens’ beautiful score plays a starring role. Melodic, evocative, sweeping and complexly layered, the music takes an extended solo turn as wild decadence ensues, and later the outstanding chorus takes the music to even more breathtaking heights.
The entire stage is filled with cavorting, contorting and carousing bodies, with garters and fishnet stockings, boxer shorts and bare male torsos, ropes and chains all part of an excess of debauchery. Above it all, an aerialist in a “barely there” bedazzled bikini-style outfit assumes poses both captivating and hard to believe, and Marcy Richardson deserves a special bow for what she brings to this heart-stopping role.
The scene is Cirque du Soleil meets Cabaret meets Fellini, and it is unforgettable, a tour de force of imaginative choreography and visionary staging. Finishing strong with a sustained burst of energy, edge and vitality, this opera deserves to be seen for many reasons, but most especially for its overachieving, over-the-top conclusion.