Samson and Delilah (), Op. 47, is a grand opera in three acts and four scenes by Camille Saint-Saëns to a French libretto by Ferdinand Lemaire. It was first performed in Weimar at the (Grand Ducal) Theater (now the Staatskapelle Weimar) on 2 December 1877 in a German translation.

The opera is based on the Biblical tale of Samson and Delilah found in Chapter 16 of the Book of Judges in the Old Testament. It is the only opera by Saint-Saëns that is regularly performed. The second act love scene in Delilah's tent is one of the set pieces that define French opera. Two of Delilah's arias are particularly well known: "" ("Spring begins") and "" ("My heart opens itself to your voice", also known as "Softly awakes my heart"), the latter of which is one of the most popular recital pieces in the mezzo-soprano/contralto repertoire.

Composition history

In the middle of the 19th century, a revival of interest in choral music swept France, and Saint-Saëns, an admirer of the oratorios of Handel and Mendelssohn, made plans to compose an oratorio on the subject of Samson and Delilah as suggested by Voltaire's libretto Samson for Rameau. The composer began work on the theme in 1867, just two years after completing his first (and as then yet unperformed) opera, Le timbre d'argent. Saint-Saëns had approached Ferdinand Lemaire, the husband of one of his wife's cousins, about writing a libretto for the oratorio but Lemaire convinced the composer that the story was better suited to an opera.

Saint-Saëns later wrote: <blockquote>A young relative of mine had married a charming young man who wrote verse on the side. I realized that he was gifted and had in fact real talent. I asked him to work with me on an oratorio on a biblical subject. 'An oratorio!', he said, 'no, let's make it an opera!', and he began to dig through the Bible while I outlined the plan of the work, even sketching scenes, and leaving him only the versification to do. For some reason I began the music with act 2, and I played it at home to a select audience who could make nothing of it at all.

In spite of many precedents, the French public reacted negatively to Saint-Saëns's intention of putting a Biblical subject on the stage. The alarm on the part of the public caused him to abandon working further on the opera for the next two years. Upon returning to France in 1875, Saint-Saëns presented act 1 in Paris at the Théâtre du Châtelet in a similar format as the 1870 performance of act 2. The work was harshly received by music critics and failed to gain the public's interest. That year acclaimed mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot, for whom Saint-Saëns wrote the role of Dalila, organized and performed in a private performance of act 2 at a friend's home in Croissy, with the composer at the piano. Viardot was a great admirer of the work and she hoped that this private performance would encourage Halanzier, the director of the Paris Opéra who was in attendance, to mount a full production. Although Saint-Saëns completed the score in 1876, no opera houses in France displayed any desire to stage Samson et Dalila. Liszt's sustained support however led to the work being mounted in Weimar in 1877.

thumb|upright|left|Samson at the Treadmill ([[Carl Bloch, 1834–1890)]]

Samson et Dalila also earned a great deal of popularity outside France during the 1890s. The opera debuted successfully in Monaco at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo on 15 March 1892. This was followed by the opera's United States premiere at Carnegie Hall in a concert version on 24 March 1892 by the Oratorio Society of New York, conducted by Walter Damrosch. The first staged performance of the opera in the U.S. was held at the French Opera House, New Orleans on 4 January 1893. The first of many productions at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City was held on 2 February 1895, with Eugenia Mantelli as Dalila, Francesco Tamagno as Samson, and Pol Plançon portraying both Abimélech and the Old Hebrew. There is some evidence that the sets for the Met's production had been taken from some of their other operas, and at the second performance that season the work was given in concert, with the ballet sequences omitted; in this form the work traveled to Boston, where it was performed on 3 March 1895.

The Metropolitan Opera revived the opera in its 1915/1916 season with Margaret Matzenauer as Delilah, Enrico Caruso as Samson, and Pasquale Amato as the High Priest. Since then the company has staged productions of the opera at least once every decade giving more than 200 performances of the work. Plácido Domingo performed as Samson in the 1981 San Francisco Opera production co-starring Shirley Verrett, under Julius Rudel and at the Metropolitan Opera's 1998 production with Olga Borodina. More recent productions of the opera by the Metropolitan have been in 2006, with Marina Domashenko and Olga Borodina alternating as Delilah, and in 2018 with Elīna Garanča and Roberto Alagna. The Lyric Opera of Chicago gave their first performance of the opera in November 1962 with Rita Gorr as Delilah and as Samson. The company has revived the work numerous times since then, most recently in their 2003/2004 season with Olga Borodina as Dalila and José Cura as Samson. Likewise, the San Francisco Opera has staged the opera 10 times during its history giving its first performance in 1925, with Marguerite d'Alvarez and Fernand Ansseau in the principal roles, and its most recent performance in 2008, with Borodina and Clifton Forbis.

Samson et Dalila became a consistent presence in the opera houses of Europe. By 1920, the Paris Opéra alone had given more than five hundred performances of the opera. In the decades after World War II, it was less often heard by European audiences; but since the 1980s it has regained much of its former Continental popularity. Recent European productions include performances at La Scala, Milan, in 2002 (Domingo and Borodina); the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 2004 (Denyce Graves and José Cura) and again in 2022; the Royal Swedish Opera in 2008 (Anna Larsson and Lars Cleveman). On October 10, 2025, Samson et Dalila became the first opera premiere of the 106th season of the Slovak National Theatre (SND) in Bratislava. This iconic work of Saint-Saëns returned to Bratislava almost a century after its initial performance in 1927. Since then, the opera has been staged twice in Slovakia: in Košice in 1970 and again in 2019.<!-- -->

Throughout its history, Samson et Dalila has served as a star vehicle for many singers. The role of Delilah is considered to be one of the great opera roles for the mezzo-soprano.

Libretto

Although the libretto of Samson et Dalila is taken from Chapter 16 of the Book of Judges, the opera does not include the accounts of Samson's heroic deeds which earned him both fame and leadership among the Hebrews. The accounts of Samson's slaying of a lion and his triumph over 1000 Philistines while wielding only the jawbone of an ass are omitted. Saint-Saëns and his librettist most likely made this choice so the story would concentrate on Dalila. Samson, therefore, is presented as an inspiring leader rather than the almost supernatural hero of the Bible. It is his vulnerable, tender heart and his susceptibility to the protestations of love from a dissembling woman that is the focus of the plot. Delilah is portrayed as a manipulative, conniving, ruthless woman bent on revenge. Samson's numerous attempts to conceal the secret of his strength in the Biblical account are only referenced by Dalila in her duet with the High Priest in the opera, and the revelation that his strength resides in his hair occurs offstage. The opera includes some material not found in the Bible such as the death of Abimélech in act 1.