There was also the ballet (choreographer, Austin McCormick), second only to the Polovtsian Dances of Dmitri Tcherniakov’s’s Prince Igor in looking like no fun at all. On the way down the stairs after the final bows, I overheard some teenagers debating the sexuality of the great Bacchanale. Was it all-boy, they asked one another, or had there been some girls? I’d pondered that myself, squinting to detect any flattened-out females amid the writhing guys, and had come to the same conclusion as the young folks: boys only. No wonder the Philistines died out. But bearing in mind that this, too, had to be a carefully considered decision reached by some tolerably woke people, and double-checking my program to make sure we were in Gaza, not Sodom, I had to ask whether it was intended to equate homoeroticism with villainous Dagonite depravity, or to celebrate the homoerotic as the only way to party. Either seems out of the question, but in any case: no girls, count me out.

A final word or two on recordings that might help persuade you of Samson‘s great-tonight potential:

For most listeners, the best statement of the complete opera is surely the 1962 studio version with Gorr and Vickers, conducted with color and thrust by Georges Prêtre, in excellent stereo sound. But for those interested in understanding the strength of Samson as a repertory opera and appreciating the values of its performance idiom, I’d put in a plug for the earliest integral recording, made in Paris by Pathé in 1946. Not a sonic miracle even in its day, and in the manner of many recordings from the monophonic years lending the solo voices an unnatural prominence in relation to orchestra and chorus, it’s nonetheless more than listenable in Ward Marston’s restoration on Naxos. None of its principals acquired big reputations outside France (though the conductor, Louis Fourestier, spent several seasons at the Met in the late ’40s) or recorded extensively. But I think you’ll be happy to know them, and to absorb the high competence—vocal, musical, stylistic—they all bring to their work. Hélène Bouvier, the Dalila, didn’t possess the sheer vocal calibre of a Homer, Stignani, or Gorr, but her poised voice has a firm, compact kind of strength, and her expressiveness an allure that becomes evident if one stops listening for overt signals of sexiness or wiliness. She later recorded a complete set of the Duparc songs.

Her Samson is José Luccioni, who with Raoul Jobin marked the end of the line of French dramatic tenors that extends back through René Maison, César Vezzani, Paul Franz, Fernand Ansseau, Charles Dalmorès, Leon Escalaïs, and others. They were all Samsons; they all recorded prolifically (except, oddly, for Maison), including excerpts from that role; and they joined with such Italians as Caruso, Zenatello, and Martinelli to keep the opera alive internationally. Like Jobin, Luccioni tended to sing open vowels just above the passaggio in what sounds like too open a position. It seems not to have cost him much, however, and while he is not a subtle, imaginative musical interpreter like Vickers, his singing is unfailingly strong, steady, and clear, with a good ring throughout the range. This set’s High Priest is the superb bass-baritone Paul Cabanel, the Arkel of the Désormiere Pelléas. Beyond his fine voice, the sheer force and finish of his elocution puts him above the other recorded interpreters of this character—we feel his stature and his drive. The baritone Charles Cambon brings some of the same qualities to Abimélech, and while the timbre of Henri Médus (the Old Hebrew) is a little plain, he gives the music dignity, and owns the brief role’s necessary low notes. Together, these last three make clear how crucial the supporting principals are to the success of the first act. Given the sonic and balance limitations, it’s hard to say much with any confidence about the actual sound of the orchestra (that of the Opéra, as picked up in the acoustic of the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées), except that it does offer some of the characteristic French woodwind timbres, an advantage or not according to taste. Fourestier’s tempi are well-judged; he builds the second act convincingly; and, though the Act 1 dance sounds as ineffectual as it did at the Met, at the same string entrances I mentioned earlier, or at the arrival of the High Priest chez Dalila in Act 2, there is dramatic address and bite. We can tell the bad guys are here, and we should be afraid.