Samson and Delilah last of Saint-Saens’ operas

By Burt Saidel

Beautiful music and great singing – that was Dayton Opera’s production of Camille Saint-Saëns opera Samson and Delilah.  I have to emphasize the “was.” A ski trip took me away before the opening night performance and prevented me giving you, my dear readers, a preview.

Impresario Tom Bankston assembled a stellar cast and mounted a production highlighting the seamless musical content of the opera.  Samson and Delilah is a biblical tale of love, deception, betrayal. The familiar “hair means strength” and the hero’s surrender to feigned and perfidious rapture is threaded throughout all literature. For many of us, Sampson is Victor Mature and Delilah the beautiful Hedy Lamarr, and she was truly beautiful.

French composer Camille Saint-Saëns didn’t have access to either Mature or Lamarr.  His strength was in creating absolutely beautiful music.  His oeuvre should not be judged by the cuteness of Carnival of the Animals but by his symphonies and concerti.  Of his dozen operas, only Samson and Delilah remains – but it is enough.  Originally conceived as an oratorio or in concert form, the opera retains a great deal of the tableaux feeling.  

Samson is limited to killing only one Philistine, the Governor Abimelech. He even does so in almost cowardly fashion, stabbing him while he is unarmed and unescorted.  

We hear a great deal of Samson’s heroics from the marvelous choral descriptions. The Dayton Philharmonic musicians responded brilliantly to conductor Joseph
Mechanich in his Dayton Opera debut. Chorus Master Jeffrey Powell’s augmented chorus was simply marvelous. The chorus, like in a Greek drama, is the continuum of the narrative.  The complexity and delicacy of the music was preserved and inspiring.  
Stage direction by Sandra Bernhard made use of a kinetic and varied set. On a raked platform appeared a Philistine Temple, Delilah’s seductive spider-web tent, Samson’s eyeless suffering before a huge grist mill and the final dramatic destruction as Samson wreaked his revenge.

The singers, led by the amazing mezzo-soprano voice of Elena Bocharova, delivered the splendor of the score.  Bocharova, well remembered as Carmen in 2005, has such musical power that we sense that there is always more. Nothing is forced, all is beautiful.

As Samson, Dongwon Shin lacked physical stature but his vocal gifts made him a giant. Two smaller roles loomed with great importance to the opera. As the ill-fated governor and the Old Hebrew, basses Ken Shaw and David Michael were brilliant. The famous final act bacchanale was danced by DCDC II dancers to the exciting choreography of Debbie Blunden-Diggs.

Dayton Opera’s stellar season is not at an end.  The brilliant and versatile soprano Ruth Ann Swenson is guaranteed to delight in her gala recital on May 4 and 6.  I promise spicy fun-filled evenings with a great soprano.

Dayton Ballet’s Swan Lake

Ballet is dance and dance can tell a story.  Dayton Ballet has been devoted to “story ballets” with great success.  Last month, Septime Webre’s version of Swan Lake was an amazing evening of great dance and a new slant on a classic myth.

This month, the company revived Dermot Burke’s America’s Robin Hood.  Burke has reset the tale of not-so-merry old England to pre-revolutionary America.  The characters he created mimic the qualities of the brave Robin Hood and his band of merry men.

The intricate tale has a large cast of characters and many plot machinations.  The production is the largest and most complex in Dayton Ballet’s history.  The ever-changing set moves from Colonial village to manor house to the surrounding forest with fluid ease.  The characters are well defined and their overriding nobility is refreshing and even inspiring.  

And, oh yes, there is dancing; dancing to the incredibly effervescent music of Dayton’s premiere composer Steven Winteregg.   The Dayton Ballet is at a pinnacle of talent and physical beauty.  While the amount of dance suffers at the hands of the plot, the quality is unabated.  

As the handsome and noble Robin Hood, handsome and noble Justin Koertgen makes female hearts throb and manly-men shout hurrah.  His love interest, the beautiful Maid Marian is the beautiful Jennifer Grund.  The other handsome and lively couple, Will Scarlet and his love Grace, are danced superbly by Richard Grund and Christy Forehand.

Of course there are villains.  The King John of the mythic Robin Hood becomes the land-greedy Johnson family.  Paul Gilliam and Elizabeth Johnson take on the task of being the bad guys in great style.  Elizabeth has to dance in the biggest hat and wig imaginable but does so marvelously.

There is the bad Indian who becomes the good Indian, danced with athletic grace by William Cannon.  Little John becomes John Little with Grant Dettling even dancing in a hoop skirt!  The most darling character is Parson Tuckerton, nee Friar Tuck.  Paul Porcino, former Dayton Ballet star now a business executive, was having the time of his life as the tipsy and loveable parson.

Three corner hats off to Dayton Ballet for taking on a work of this grand scale.  I look forward to The Who’s Tommy – all glorious dance – on April 26-29.

Fukuma at Soirees Musicales

Soirees Musicales, the international piano series will feature Kotaro Fukuma on Saturday, March 24 at 8 p.m. in Shiloh Church, North Main at Philadelphia Drive, Dayton.

Program will include; Chaconne in D minor (for the left hand only) by J.S. Bach; Variations and Fuga in E-flat Major “Eroica” Op. 35 by Ludwig Van Beethoven and From Iberia by Isaac Albeniz.

Tickets are available at the door, evening of performance or by reservation.
Adults $20; Seniors $18; Students (age 19-22) $12; 18 & Under – FREE.

MVSO announces competition

The Miami Valley Symphony Orchestra announces its fourth annual Clark J. Haines Memorial Concerto Competition, which will be held on Saturday, May 19, 2007 at Wright State University’s Creative Arts Center. The MVSO is offering the winner a $300 prize, plus a chance to perform with the orchestra on its 2007-08 season.
The competition is open to all instruments and any performer who is not presently engaged as a full-time, professional musician. The competition has no age limits or residency requirements.

Prospective contestants will perform a 10-minute piece or excerpt from one movement of a concerto or other work with a published orchestral accompaniment (the competition performance will be with piano accompaniment). The winner will rehearse and perform the competition piece with the orchestra next season.

Contestants are asked to submit an application by May 1, 2007.

For application instructions or more information, applicants should call Felicia Bauman at 937-476-5043, or write to Miami Valley Symphony Orchestra at P.O. Box 164, Dayton, Ohio 45409-0164.

top of page

March 20, 2007
Volume 16, No. 12

front page
arts
schools
sports
editorial
'round town
people
events
obituaries