Performers
Samson: Placido Domingo
Delilah: Olga Borodino
The High Priest of Dagon: Jean Philippe Lafont
Abimelech: ldar Abdrazakov
An old Hebrew: Bonaldo Giaiotti
A messenger: Rosario Spina
A Philistine: Alfredo Nigro
A Philistine: Dejan Vatchkov

Orchestra and chorus of La Scala
Conductor: Gary Bertini
Director: Hugo de Ana

Famed for its powerful choruses and picturesque orchestration, Saint-Saëns's Samson and Delilah is given the La Scala treatment in this acclaimed production from 2002 starring Placido Domingo in the title role.

Based on Judges XVI, it is a stirring Biblical drama in three acts, which premiered over 120 years ago in December 1877 at the Court Theatre in Weimar, Germany. In the well-known tale, Samson - one of the oppressed Jews - displays a unique strength when he kills Abimelech, one of the ruling Philistines. With Samson already under the spell of the beautiful Delilah, the High Priest of Dagon uses Delilah's allure to discover the secret of Samson's power. Betrayed by Delilah and overpowered by the Philistines, Samson is paraded in his weakness into the temple. With a final prayer to God, enough strength returns for him to bring the temple crashing down on the heads of his enemies.

This is a passionate opera of love, betrayal and judgement, whose score by turns evokes its exotic setting, presents airy lyrical arias, and is deeply seductive: Saint-Saëns considered Mon coeur s'ouvre a ta voix so pivotal that he refused to write any of the rest of the opera until he was completely happy with it.

However, the opera really belongs to Domingo, who gives one of his finest performances in a role he knows well and has had time to mature into. In an interview during the run, Domingo said that his performance was informed by his childhood experience of the story of Samson and Delilah, the Cecil B DeMille film version starring Hedy Lamarr and Victor Mature, which bewitched him from an early age. He then started to sing the role of Samson in 1965 and has since played the part more than a hundred times, and his experience shows in this rousing performance of Samson as a hugely powerful figure, simultaneously human and supernatural.