In 1867, Saint-Saëns developed an idea for a dramatic work based on the Biblical story of Samson and Delilah and began to set it as an oratorio. But when he enlisted the poet Ferdinand Lemaire to help on the libretto, Lemaire persuaded him to try it as an opera. The composer began with Act II, the pivotal seduction and betrayal, but after private piano performances baffled everyone who heard it, Saint-Saëns broke off work on the project. The staging of his opera La princesse jaune in 1872 inspired Saint-Saëns to resume work on Samson et Dalila. He did not finish it until 1876, and when no French theater expressed interest in the new work, Franz Liszt organized its premiere in Weimar in 1877. Samson et Dalila did not begin provincial performances in France until 1890 and reached the Paris Opéra stage only in 1892.

It has remained in the repertory ever since, however, the only one of Saint-Saëns’ numerous operas, ballets, and other stage works to do so. The opera is a dazzling virtuoso and expressive vehicle for the two leads and is admired for its combination of brilliant sound and dramatic emotion. Those qualities are quite evident in the famous Bacchanale, the orgiastic, percussion-driven dance that precedes Samson’s destruction of the Philistine temple in Act III.

—John Henken