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26 Saturday May 28 2022 | the timesNews
Opera Richard Morrison
Samson et Dalila
Royal Opera House
HHHHIBiblical epic about savage world bursts
with star turns and theatrical energy
Money or morality? In Richard
Jones’s entertaining new Royal
Opera staging of Camille Saint-
Saëns’s biblical opera the divide
seems clear. On one side are the
Philistines, cavorting frenetically in
lashings of bling round an effigy of
Dagon, their god, depicted as a
clown’s head flanked by a fruit
machine and casino chips. On the
other the Israelites: pious, plainly
clad and persecuted, although also
fanatically self-righteous.
In the middle, however, are two
of the most conflicted figures in
opera. With his nation’s fate resting
on his shoulders, why does the
supposedly heroic Samson divulge
the source of his strength — his
flowing locks — to Dalila, the Mata
Hari of ancient Canaan?
And, like Tom Jones, we also
have to ask, “Why, why, why,
Dalila?” As delivered by the
magnificent Elina Garanca, her
gorgeous love song for Samson is
genuinely felt, as is her contempt
for her Philistine compatriots. Yet
she betrays him. The moral
confusion evident in both
characters is what gives Act II of
this production its surging
theatrical energy, especially with
Garanca matched for vocal power
by the young Korean tenor
SeokJong Baek, making an
outstanding Royal Opera debut.
Jones’s staging, in Hyemi Shin’s
ingeniously shifting sets, is
ambiguous about historical context.
It has modern-day costumes but a
grandstand-like temple with a
reassuringly epic Cecil B DeMille
look. In a clever bit of symmetry,
that is hauled on stage by supermanSamson at the opera’s start, then
destroyed by him (I won’t divulge
how, but it’s impressive) at the end.
I couldn’t work out why the
Philistine hordes are required to
overact like cartoon characters, but
Lucy Burge’s choreography for their
Bacchanale is terrific: robotic and
manic at the same time.
What’s best about this show,
however, is its musical
qualities. Garanca and
Baek deliver star turns,
but there’s also much to
enjoy, vocally, from
Goderdzi Janelidze
as a crippled but
doughty Rabbi,
making a spectral
re-entry after
death to stiffen
the sinews of the
imprisoned Samson.
Lukasz Golinski
relishes stirring up
the mob as a High
Priest of Dagon,and Blaise Malaba shines briefly,
especially from his gold-plated
hairdo, as a Philistine henchman.
The chorus is in top form,
whether delivering the Israelites’
plainsong laments (they must be
Catholic Israelites) or hurling out
the Philistines’ taunting choruses.
And so is the orchestra. Any notion
that Saint-Saëns’s music is mushy
and sentimental is dispelled by
Antonio Pappano’s
conducting. Time and
again repeated note
patterns in the
accompaniment are
turned into obsessive,
razor-sharp ostinatos,
while string textures
for the lyrical tunes
are whittled into
diaphanous veils. It’s
a stunning sound-picture
of a savage, fanatical
world in which love is a
fleeting illusion.
To June 19, roh.org.uk An effigy of the Philistines’ god Dagon, one ofShipwreck rules put
a cork in wine rescue
On September 29, 1918, Hellmuth von
Ruckteschell, a U-Boat captain, gave
the order to fire and sank the
Libourne, a British cargo ship, off the
coast of Cornwall. This was not the
blow against the British war effort the
German had hoped. He’d just sunk
£425 worth of gherkins and 10,000
bottles of liquor.
A team of buccaneering marine
explorers are seeking permission to
recover the bottles of sauternes,
champagne and premier cru claret,
which are all uniquely preserved
after a century in the dark and deep.
While the wreck has been slowly
eroded, up to 90 per cent of the alco-hol has survived and the explorers
are keen to cash in. It’s a case of yo-
ho-ho and a bottle of Haut-Brion.
However, their plans have hit a
small hiccup. The ship in ques-
tion, the Libourne, falls under
the jurisdiction of the British
government, whose policy is
not to allow salvaging of
wrecks for commercial
gain. “It just seems com-
pletely crazy,” says
Daniel Jayson, part of
10994, the group seek-
ing to recover the bot-
tles. “This is a perisha-
ble cargo and we’ve
been told to leave it.
There’s no common
sense being applied.”It all started as “a bit of fun”, with
the team coming from disparate
backgrounds. Jayson is an underwa-
ter engineer but his colleagues in-
clude a former investment
banker, a financier and one
man, Luc Hey-
mans, who has
prior experi-
ence in this area,
having salvaged
$80 million of
treasure, includ-
ing crystals, pearls
and gold, in Indone-
sia. The team initially
looked for “accessible”
wrecks in British waters.
As they perused the
Admiralty reports,Jack Blackburn
History Correspondent