Samson et Dalila

In Saint-Saëns's retelling of the biblical story, the Philistine lords need someone to stop Samson — the strongest man alive, who has been leading the Israelites to victory after victory. They send Dalila. She has tried before and failed. This time she is patient and methodical, and she understands that what she is offering is something Samson already wants and is already resisting. Her second-act aria Mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix — my heart opens to your voice — is the great seduction scene of French opera: unhurried, opulent, and completely intentional, sung to a man who knows somewhere that he should not believe it and cannot make himself leave. Saint-Saëns's score is one of the most lushly orchestrated in the French repertoire, and the opera is unusually focused for a biblical epic — essentially a two-person study of desire and its weaponization.