On first glance as you enter the Palladium, the set for St. Petersburg Opera’s Samson et Dalila doesn’t look like much: big fake boulders, white fabric hanging from the rafters, little piles of what look like abandoned rags scattered across the stage. But once the action starts, the transformation is a credit to the power of a smart director, ingenious lighting and, oh, yes, the glorious music of the 19th-century French composer Camille Saint-Saëns.
This is a surprising production in more ways than one, beginning with its very first moments. I don’t want to reveal too much about director Eric Davis’ coup de théatre, except to say that it involves the chorus and explains what those ragpiles are for. It also jolts the audience out of its expectations. Most of us are familiar with the Biblical fable on which the opera is based — the story of the Israeli strongman felled by a seductive Philistine and a particularly unfortunate haircut — but Davis’ approach reminds us that the struggles between tyranny and rebellion portrayed in the opera are anything but remote.
This article appears in Mar 1-7, 2012.