Most people today do not associate themselves with the Opera: when they hear the word, they think instantly of several boring hours of listening to fat women named Brunhilde wearing Viking helmets, surrounded by affluent members of society wearing furs seated in a richly decorated theatre. Yet opera, as a medium, continues to have a massive effect on our popular culture. Everyone can sing the familiar song of Figaro (“Figaro, figaro-figaro-figaro…”etc.), most would probably recognize the tunes to “Toreador” and “Donna e mobile”, and thanks to an aggressive advertising campaign, I will always think of British Airways when I hear “Dôme Épais” from Lakmé. Even the fact that we associate opera with the Viking Brunhilde singing in German for several hours is an attestation to the influence of Wagner. The names and stories of Tosca and Carmen are well known, and both La Bohème and Madame Butterfly have recently inspired Broadway musicals by the name of Rent and Miss Saigon. Who is familiar with the original story of Don Juan, separate from the influence of Mozart, or the original Figaro stories apart from those told in The Marriage of Figaro or The Barber of Seville? Who can tell the true story of Salomé, the girl who is never named in the New Testament and whose story occupies merely ten lines of verse, without resorting to the influences of Massenet’s Herodiade or Strauss’ Salomé? The influence of opera continues to be seen in our popular culture, as the medium itself is pervasive; the combination of words and music creates an impression on the listener’s brain with associations that last long after the listening is over. This is an influential medium, one which harnesses the power of music in order to capture viewers and listeners, keeping familiar themes in their heads connected with old stories.
The operatic medium originally began with the setting of recognizable mythological or folk tales to music. Performed at courts for the benefit of royalty, these musical dramas were extremely popular. It was only recently that ‘going to the Opera’ became a pastime associated with upper class leisure; as a source of entertainment in a pre-electronic-media culture, operas were a considerably influential medium of expression. Composers sometimes produced original stories, but the general trend was to take a story already familiar to an audience and produce it as entertainment. Not surprisingly, composers were known to take considerable liberty with the texts: Orfeo’s Euridike is restored to him alive, and the story of Massenet’s Herodiade is so dramatically different from its original form that only the characters’ names have remained unchanged. These changes may have come about for the purpose of entertainment, in the purposeful intent of sending a new message to the audience, or simply by accident out of a state of ignorance. But the fact remains that it is usually the operatic version of these stories which has survived in popular culture today. And as most opera tales began as folk or mythological tales, usually containing a message, moral, or etiological point of some sort, it is interesting to observe in the changes made between the original version and the operatic version. In many cases, the meaning of the story has changed, and if the original story is supplanted by the opera version in popular culture, this changes forever the culture’s perception of a particular tale.
In some cases, the changes made to a story are quite subtle, and usually conform to a perception of the tale present at the time. However, the resulting change in the moral of the story can be drastic and long-lasting. This is the case with two late nineteenth century musical dramas in particular, both of which have adapted the a story from the Old Testament with some remarkable results. In a comparison of the original biblical stories with their operatic counterparts, it can clearly be seen that the changes made in the story for the purpose of the opera have fundamentally altered the perception of the biblical story, creating a new and often more powerful message, delivered and immortalized in the musical medium.
The creation story told in the Bible is, in actuality, comprised of two sources and two stories. In the first, man and woman are created at the same time, equally in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), and are commanded to “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it…” (Gen. 1:28). This story, however, is the lesser known of the two. Generally, the second account of Man’s creation has been dominant in Western institutions. This is the account in which Adam is created first and alone (Gen. 2:7), is placed in Eden (Gen. 2:15), and commanded not to touch the fruit of “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Gen.2:17) on pain of death. Adam then names the animals. God then forms “a help meet” for Adam, a woman, out of his rib (Gen. 2:22), whom Adam names Woman. The original Hebrew text treats this Woman as Adam’s equal partner, in spite of the later Western translations and interpretations of these passages which indicated that the Woman was in a position of subservience to Adam.
The Woman encounters a serpent, who tells her that, instead of dying, if she eats the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, “then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil (Gen. 3:5). The woman examines the tree, and finding it acceptable to her eyes, decides to eat of the tree. She then gives some of the fruit to Adam, who eats as well. As soon as they eat the fruit, “the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked”(Gen. 3:7). Soon after, God punishes the three transgressors, snake, woman, and man, and casts them from the garden; the snake, henceforth, loses his legs and will have to crawl along the ground, hated by human beings, man will have to work hard to till the soil, and woman will suffer more in childbearing yet be required to continue bearing children for the sake of the population (Meyers). At this point, Adam names his wife Eve, because “she was the mother of all living” (Gen.3:20).
This story, told here in a ‘bare basics’ format, has undergone almost radical transformation in the eyes of translators and commentators, where “[t]he association of Eve and sin with sexuality and lust, already present in texts such as the Books of Adam and Eve and the New Testament, is expanded in both Christian and Jewish postbiblical sources…” (Meyers, p.77) Eve’s creation and punishment became elaborated through translation to become the basis of all women’s status in Christianity according to the Church Fathers, including elements of a ‘fall’, ‘original sin’, and ‘temptation’. However, the text itself tells a simple story: the first man is given a woman companion, who –after a conversation with a serpent-- makes a decision, based on a rational judgement, to do something she was told not to do: reach for knowledge. They are sent away and punished for the action. But the action is done; now, both Adam and Eve are “as gods, knowing good and evil”. (Gen. 3:5). This, in essence, is the story of Adam and Eve as told in the Old Testament.
Although Massenet’s 1874 dramatic oratorio, Eve, was never performed as an opera like Marie Magdaleine, it is part of the same operatic tradition, and certainly allows for performance on a grander scale. Although it takes a biblical story as its subject, it shows several major differences from the biblical story. First of all, there is a change in the cast of characters: there is no God, and there is no serpent. Instead, there is a narrator of the story, who jumps in with third person judgements and observations, and an ever-present chorus which plays alternatively the roles of the angels and the voices of the night, suggesting that the same forces created, tempted, and punished the first humans. It is important to note that these character changes have not been made for the sake of preserving a tradition in the oratorio style; although a chorus is usually a standard part of the production, the three featured vocalists are soprano, tenor, and baritone, which leaves plenty of room for a bass or an alto voice in additional character roles.
As the oratorio opens, the choir, now cast as Heavenly Voices, sets the scene: “Man in the palm-shade sleeps at even” (Massenet, p.3). The choral harmonies and simple accompaniment echo the beautiful landscape painted with the words. Soon, “...from out the vast, lonely spaces Where in dreamless slumber he lies, Appears a form whose being grace is, whose being light and grace is” (Massenet p.5-6). Man, hearing the voices “that seem to call from heav’n above” (Massenet, p.7), awakes to see “the woman arrayed in beauty and in love” (Massenet, p.7-8). Apparently, Eve simply appears from nowhere. God is not mentioned, nor is her exact creation. It is simply stated, “Man, thou art not alone! Now awake, and arise!” (Massenet, p.8)
In the Prelude, Scena, and Duet movement which follows, Adam and Eve behold each other for the first time. The directions for the following lines include, “Dreamily”, “Rapturously”, and “Lost in admiration”, but especially, “With great simplicity”, “Cantabile” (singingly), and “Tranquillo” (tranquil).
ADAM: Oh! Mystery before me! Lo! A vision of light has appear’d to mine eyes!
EVE: Ah! Troubled thoughts of bliss come o’er me, Burning flames within me rise!
ADAM: Fairest being of bliss … art thou come from the sky to me a form divine? Like the dawn is thy face, bright with a soft emotion, And thine eyes are as waves when they glitter and shine.
EVE: With heav’n’s reflected splendor thy forehead is beaming, Thy glance is like the lightening as it falls on me!
ADAM: Thy long and golden hair, lo! in the sun is gleaming, It floats round thy limbs as a veil covers thee.
EVE: How tall thou art and strong, and valiant to my seeming, Within thy mighty hand, my hand lies tremblingly!
ADAM: Thy tender smile, how pure! (Massenet, p.11-12)
These opening descriptions tell us much about each character and their associations. Adam is described with harsh and sometimes regal imagery; heaven has crowned him with its splendour, he is so tall, strong, mighty and valiant that he makes “tender” Eve tremble. Although both characters are initially associated with light imagery, Eve is usually the softer light, associated with the dawn, the ocean, and a floating veil, in contrast to Adam’s lightening beams. And finally, Eve is described as “pure”.
Although the two consider themselves “plighted in love for aye” (Massenet, p.15), the subsequent love duet is simple and soft, both musically and textually. They meander through “bushes in bloom” (Massenet, p.14), call each other “dearest” (Massenet, p.14) and “beloved and loving” (Massenet, p.14), and unite their lives in “a true and tender bond” (Massenet, p.15). During this duet, Adam takes several lines to himself in recitative, in which he names Eve; no reference is given to the meaning of this name, however. The two wander off through the tame wildlife, hand in hand (Massenet, p.18).
The following movement is sung by the chorus only, this time under the role of Voices of Nature. The song describes the effect which “the first sweet smile of woman”(Massenet, p.19) has had over nature; everything comes alive, trembling. “All is life” (Massenet, p.24), and the once passive seas and skies now unite, the waves kissing one another. It is as if harmonious love is introduced with the first woman.
In the second act, The Temptation, the chorus becomes the Voices of the Night. They sing to Eve, who has “come to the silence to listen, counsel to crave from the dark skies above” (Massenet, p.28-29), and they lead her to the tree of knowledge, “and its fruit which is love” (Massenet, p29). Eve replies, singing dolcissimo (Massenet, p.32) in the deep darkness, and enters the wood in order to find the secret kept by the silent of the night, beseeching Nature to reveal to her “the secret of life” (Massenet, p.34). The Voices of the Night answer her, telling her that love will grant her “earthly might and splendour” (Massenet, p.38). Eve sings of love “vaguely” (Massenet, p.38), and “with simplicity” states “’Tis a word which I know not, Who can its secret sense explain to me, and the tremor it wakes in my bosom!” (Massenet, p.38-39). This passage demonstrates that Woman is not yet familiar with love; although she and Adam pledge to each other and she excites nature to motion, these motions are still quite simple. The love she has known so far has been vague, exciting, and rapturous, but has made her tremble and muse in naïveté and admiration.
The Voices continue to sing, explaining to her why the fruit of the tree of knowledge, which -in this oratorio- is love, is so attractive:
“Wouldst thou call thine own earthly might and splendour?
… Woman, Love alone will give them unto thee!
Slave thou art, but Love to thee a crown will tender.
Come! As Queen of all the earth thou shalt be worshipp’d …
Man, thy master, shall to thee his rule surrender …
Come! Thine be the pomp and pride of might …
Man must pass away, day yield unto night,
But the earth to the last shall be thy possession.” (Massenet, p.39-43)
Eve repeats the above phrases, supported by racing accompaniment which accelerates as she raves “with rapturous delight” and “in ecstasy” (Massenet, p.44). She concludes, in notes marked with accents for emphasis, “Joyful I shall be, Ah! For aye I shall rejoice in beauty’s pride” (Massenet, p.45). A lengthly duet follows between Eve and the Voices, in which they trade these lines back and forth in a fugue-like composition. Eve sings higher and higher, and with more and more animation and enthusiasm noted in the directions, and the scene ends as she sings, “The desire of my heart draws me away, I come!” (Massenet, p.52). The stage directions read: “EVE hastens away, and disappears in the night” (Massenet, p.52).
These lines are particularly interesting, as they reveal the changes between the focus of the dramatic oratorio versus that of the biblical text. We have already seen that the fruit of the tree of knowledge in this case is love, not the knowledge which will grant Eve an understanding of good and evil. But further, this love is not the pure and tranquil love with which Eve is familiar; this is the love which will reverse her role with Adam’s. Hers will be the regal and mighty language with which Adam was first crowned. And although nothing so far has determined that Eve is currently subservient to Adam (this is considered part of the punishment, according to the biblical story), she is promised that she will reign over him with love as the source of her power. Interestingly, the allusion is made in which day yields to night which, in context, associates Adam and his reign with daytime and the reign of Eve with night. This association is continued when the narrator sings, “Night has triumphed over day”(Massenet, p.55).
The third act, entitled “The Fall”, opens with the narrator singing an Air, addressing Woman. He begs her to “Shun the tempter’s voice” (Massenet,p.54), and to “Guard thy soul, its virgin whiteness Free from passion stains of love!” (Massenet, p.55). But a pause in the music, marked by a rest and a fermata in all staves, indicates that Eve, somewhere off stage, has taken the fruit. The narrator continues in recitative: “Alas! It is too late!” (Massenet, p.55)
The next movement opens with tumultuous chords, and the proclamation by the chorus, now cast as Spirits of the Deep: “Yours be love!” (Massenet, p.56). The narrator then cries, “Woman! Knowing passion’s sway, thou too wilt know great grief and hate; thy bliss has vanished!” (Massenet, p.56). The music then descends into a beautiful love song, “andante con moto” as opposed to the previous, andante sostenuto section. Eve’s “dolce” yet animated voice is heard from off-stage, taking Adam, who is on stage, completely by surprise:
“Let us love, for love means living,
Great joy to all beings giving:
Love surrounds us, Love surrounds us with its breath of fire!
Let us love, for love means living…
Let me be thine, let me enfold thee
With mine arms in tender embrace;
Cling close to me, let me behold thee,
Thy face inclining to my face…
Our new love, our soft emotion,
All living things in earth and ocean
Seem to share with our two hearts!
Let us love, for love means living!
Let us love for love is life!
Yea! Love is life! Let us love!” (Massenet, p.57-59: italics indicate accented notes.)
Although they have sung of their love together before, this new song is different. Backed up by voluptuous arpeggios and passionate orchestration, this is not the sparsely accompanied, innocent prayer-like song of their previous conversation. This love enables them to possess creation which, although earlier depicted in loving harmony, is afterwards described as sad and even chaotic. Further, Eve sings of love as active, enfolding, surrounding, and clinging, whereas before they spoke only of demure admiration. Eve’s love is also physical – we left them holding hands and straying through creation, Eve unable to look Adam full in the face because of the reflections of heaven’s lightning on his brow.
Adam’s reaction is particularly interesting, considering that we are told nothing of his reaction in the Bible save, “..and he did eat” (Gen. 3:6). The oratorio sees Adam sing along with Eve, but with a different melody. This tune soars higher and higher in his tenor range into a climax in the last two lines, while she sings “Love is life, let us love!”:
“Eve, thou art strange, thou art strange!
And thy words in my bosom have awakened a voice
I must obey its luring tone,
I must obey, I have no choice!
I must obey, I have no choice!” (Massenet, p.58-59)
The music swells in a tense dominant seventh arpeggio, growing louder and higher until resolving in a triumphant and full tonic chord. The dynamics then indicate a dramatic shift; growing instantly soft, the music is marked “lento e sustenuto”, and Adam’s notes are marked “as in a dream”. He sings, “What unknown rapture!”(Massenet, p.59), indicating once again that this kind of love, this erotic love, is a new experience for him as well. The two of them sing in a beautiful duet, and in their separate lines of melody and text, both speak of the blissful passion that surrounds them, of their arms around each other and of each other’s “life-giving kiss”. Creation fades around them, and “all earthly treasures” belong to them (Massenet, p.61). Finally they sing together in harmony, supported by large, accented arpeggios in octaves marked “fortissimo” and “tutta forza”:
“Cling to me, let thine arms be around me,
Great love within our hearts must dwell forever!”
(Massenet, p.62: italics indicate accented notes)”
The orchestra is also in a frenzy of passion, animated and defying rhythm in eight bars of triplets. Finally, the two sing in mounting harmony, “All the world is our own.” (Massenet, p.63) The following section sees Adam and Eve singing what was primarily Eve’s love theme almost entirely in unison; musically, she has seduced him. The Spirits of the Deep sing underneath them, sometimes contradicting them, sometimes joining them in their words in harmonies. The final section grows to climax as Eve sings, “Let us love”, followed by Adam in harmony, then the chorus sings, “Yours be love”.
This, officially, is the end of the three act oratorio. However, a final section, entitled The Curse, is added as an Epilogue. This suggests that the main story has already been told. In contrast, the purpose of the biblical story, it can be argued, is precisely the etiological punishment that follows. It is during the after-thought Epilogue that the first reference to God, a main character in the biblical narrative, is made by the narrator: “There is heard, loud and mighty, a voice from above” (Massenet, p.69). However, the ensuing punishment is made by the chorus, singing now in the roles of the Voices of Nature and the Chorus of the Universe. They sing of the “vengeance” and “wrath” of “the living God” (Massenet, p.74, 76), but this living God is not seen. In the oratorio, we have only seen love associated with life; it was love that replaced the invisible God in the lives of Adam and Eve. Further, we have no reason to believe that the tree of knowledge is actually forbidden, other than our own cultural expectations. In addition, Adam and Eve, who have shown no shame and who are merely and generally proclaimed “accurst!” by the chorus, have one last request: “Punish us, but at least let us share joy and anguish, Ah, do not part us twain…” (Massenet, p.84). The last words in the opera, however, belong to the Spirits: sung “twice as slow” as the orchestra descends in crashing octaves, they pronounce “Ye are accurst!” (Massenet, p.85) in a final, triumphant G minor chord.
This dramatic oratorio by Massenet has demonstrated some clear departures from its biblical source. The absence of the key characters of God and the serpent, of the issue of shame of nakedness, and of a clear etiological value in the tale is disturbing. The central theme of the story has become love. The love that Eve comes to possess is promised to deliver the earth and her husband into her hands. The seductive nature of her subsequent song and the erotic nature of the love she has acquired cannot be ignored, and certainly do not exist in the biblical tale. Eve’s love is not the innocent love which surrounded and mystified them in the first act, it is a sexual love, a possessive and a powerful love. The central message of the story is no longer one of humans who transgress because they wish to become like their gods; it is now the story of the first time when love was used for the purposes of power.
Jules Massenet is not the only opera writer who has changed a biblical story in this way. As we shall see, the power of sexual love and the denunciation thereof become central themes in the adaptation of the story of Samson and Delilah by his contemporary, Camille Saint-Saens.
The story of Samson and Delilah has been pointed out as originating in Middle Eastern folklore before it became immortalized in Western culture through the Old Testament. This story, like that of the Creation in Genesis, has also received a lot of attention in the form of later interpretation and indoctrination, altering the story from that actually written in the book of Judges to include issues of temptation and the evil feminine. Recent critics, especially Mieke Bal, have analyzed the story according to Freudian models, interpreting hair cutting as symbolic castration, and identifying Delilah as a birthing mother. However, in this analysis, it is important to look first at the simple text in Judges 16.
By the time we meet Delilah in Judges 16:4, we are already well acquainted with the Danite Samson, as he has figured in several stories over the previous chapters, often involving many other women. Delilah, however, is the first woman in his story to receive a name: “She Who Makes Weak”(Weldon, p.79). She is from “the valley of Sorek” (16:4), which borders on Philistine territory, but she is not explicitly named as a Philistine. Samson falls in love with her (16:4), even though he has already run into trouble loving Philistine women (Judges 14, 15, 16). “And the lords of the Philistines came up unto her, and said unto her, Entice him and see wherein his great strength lieth, and by what means we may prevail against him, that we may bind him to afflict him: and we will give thee every one of us eleven hundred pieces of silver.” (16:5) So Delilah sets out to discover the secret of Samson’s strength in order to earn this reward. Three times, Samson responds with a lie, but even though Delilah consistently tests what he has told her, he does not leave her.
And she said unto him, how canst thou say , I love thee, when thine heart is not with me? Thou hast mocked me these three times, and hast not told me wherein thy great strength lieth. And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death… (KJV, Judges 16:15-16)
Samson finally tells her his secret, and Delilah calls for the Philistine lords. They pay her for her services, and “[s]he lulled Samson to sleep on her lap, and then summoned a man to shave the seven locks of his hair. She was now making him helpless.” (OSB, Judges 16) The Philistines capture Samson easily, and take him away from Delilah to Gaza. It is there, in the middle of a feast to which he is called for entertainment, that Samson pulls the building’s pillars down upon the Philistine merry-makers, “… [s]o the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.” (KJV Judges 16:30) We do not hear of Delilah after Judges 16:20.
From a reading of the original Biblical text, the original story is clearly told: Delilah is offered money in exchange for discovering Samson’s secret, and she uses the power of her words to do so. In Frymer-Kensky’s words, “[n]either Samson’s first wife nor Delilah used sexual wiles or erotic attraction to seduce him. His women tried to talk him into revealing a secret … The nagging of Samson’s women (rather than any sexy wiles) did him in”(p.135). Nowhere is it stated that she uses her sexual charms in order to goad him into telling the secret, and nowhere is it stated that she has an interest in the situation beyond a monetary one – she is not even clearly a Philistine. Delilah, She Who Makes Weak, does so with her voice, insisting that he does not love her if he cannot trust her. In its laconic style, the Old Testament writer(s) sets out the story of Samson and Delilah with a few echoes of the story of Adam of Eve; a woman who takes control of a situation for her own purposes, and a protagonist male who is punished for ‘listening to the voice of his wife/woman’. Unlike Eve, however, Delilah is not punished for her actions. She clearly demonstrates a method to which many Old Testament women resorted in order to exert power in their situations: “… women’s persistent speech can be a weapon of opportunity” (Frymer-Kensky).
The power of the female voice is a story that could potentially find an extremely sympathetic medium in the world of opera, where the voice of the Prima Donna is celebrated. However, the version of Samson and Delilah as told by Saint Saens in his 1877 opera, Samson et Dalila, does not take advantage of this interpretation. Saint-Saens’ Dalila is different from her biblical counterpart, and the differences in her character, motivation, and action are observable in both her music and her words.
The opera opens with the Hebrews, enslaved by the Philistines, moaning that their God has deserted them. It is Samson who intervenes, imploring his companions to keep the faith, then killing the leader of the Philistines. The High Priest who hears of the murder curses Samson, saying, “May a worthless woman finally betray his love!” (Recording Notes, p.22) We then meet Dalila in the last scene of this first act, when she enters with a group of Philistine women to celebrate Samson’s success. They sing a beautiful song about springtime and love in innocent choral harmony to the music of two harps, flutes, and violins, inviting each other to love in a phrase which echoes that of Adam and Eve in Eve: “Aimons, mes soeurs, aimons toujours!” (“Let us love, sisters, let us love always/forever!” Saint-Saens, p.129) This song gives way to Dalila’s personal address to Samson. Beautifully simple in A major and accompanied by harps and woodwinds, her song is virginal in a musical sense, but is given a sexual tinge by its textual allusions to the biblical Song of Songs and the imagery therein (verse references given to the Song of Solomon):
“Pour toi, j’ai couronné mon front “For you I have crowned my brow
Des grappes noires du troène with the black berries(7:7) of the privet,
Et mis des roses de Saron and twined roses of Sharon (2:1)
Dans ma chevelure d’ébène … in my ebony hair(5:11)…
Doux est the muguet parfumé; Sweet is the scented lily of the valley (2:1),
Mes baisers le sont plus encore; but my kisses are still sweeter (1:2);
Et le suc de la mandragore and the juice of the mandrake (7:13, also Leah and Rachel’s fertility charm)
Est moins suave, ô bien-aimé! gives less delight, O beloved(6:3, &tc)!
Ouvre tes bras à ton amante, Open your arms to your lover (5:6),
Et dèpose-la sur ton
cœur And place her down
on your heart (3:6, 8:3)
Comme un sachet de douce odeur Like a sachet of sweet perfume
Dont la senteur est enivrante!” Whose fragrance is intoxicating (sweet perfumes, spices, and scents, and intoxicating wines are linked and mentioned throughout the Song of Songs).
Ah! Viens! Ah, come! (2:13)”
(Recording Notes, p.23, emphasis added)
She and the girls then dance for the benefit of Samson and the Hebrew soldiers to a tune in a minor, exotic key punctuated by cymbals and triangles. Samson is enraptured, in spite of an old Hebrew’s warnings to “avoid and fear this foreign girl … close your ear to her lying voice, and avoid the serpent’s venom” (Recording Notes, p.23, translation mine). From the start, Dalila is not only identified as a Philistine, but is also strongly associated with sexual love, both in the pleasures of the flesh from the Song of Songs, and in the sin of sexuality traditionally assumed to have been introduced by the serpent in Genesis.
The second act opens at Dalila’s house at nightfall, where we find her sitting on a rock, “more adorned than in Act 1” (Recording Notes, p.25). She implores love to “come to aid me in my weakness! Pour your poison into his breast.” (Recording Notes, p.25) She boasts that although her brothers are afraid of him, she is not, and sings triumphantly, “Il est à moi! C’est mon esclave!… Moi seule, entre tous, je le brave et the retiens à mes genoux!” (Saint-Saens, p.185-6) This can be translated, “He is mine! He is my slave!… Only me, among everyone, I brave him and keep him at my knees!” (translation mine), or alternatively, “…keep him at my feet” (Recording Notes, p.25). This phrase, “à mes genoux”, is repeated in several other parts of the opera, consistently referring to Dalila’s power over Samson, and is an association which we have seen in another story in Judges: as Jael smites Sisera, he falls between her legs or knees. The dually sexual and deadly nature of this imagery is well discussed by Susan Niditch, in the article, “Eroticism and Death in the Tale of Jael” (p.47-48). Once again, Dalila is She Who Makes Weak, but this time, she uses sexual power to achieve her goal.
Dalila is approached by the High Priest of Dagon, who offers Dalila her choice of reward from all his riches if she will only “Serve us with your power” (Recording Notes, p.26). Dalila, in contrast to her biblical character, scoffs at him, saying, “What matters your gold to Dalila?” (Recording Notes, p.26) She will do the deed for the sake of vengeance alone. She continues, telling the High Priest that she has already tried to get the secret out of him three times, but this final attempt should prove successful as, “… I have prepared my weapons: Samson will not be able to resist my tears.” (Recording Notes, p.27) She states her desire clearly and repeatedly: “To satisfy my hate, my power must enslave him! I want him, overcome by love, to submit in his turn!” (Recording Notes, p.27) She then sings, “A moi l’honneur de la vengeance, a moi l’honneur!” (“To me, the honour of vengeance, to me the honour!” Libretto, p.231, translation mine), and her musical phrases end in a dominant-to-tonic resolution which adds extra emphasis to her determination. This statement of intent solidifies Dalila’s associations with the destructive power of love, a power wielded intentionally by women for personal gain and/or glory, and brings her even closer to her operatic sister, Massenet’s Eve.
Dalila’s character takes on another dimension when we consider another musical aspect of her role. It is important to note here that the role of Dalila is written for a mezzo-soprano, a woman whose voice is not quite as high as a full soprano or quite as low as an alto, but ranges in between. In the world of opera, the role of the soprano is usually that of the virginal girl, usually the heroine, and the role of the alto is either an older woman, a less important woman, or a bad woman. As a Mezzo, Dalila has access to both these stereotypical roles: she can sing both high and low. The choice of a mezzo soprano means that Dalila can switch back and forth quite easily between soprano and alto, between sweetness and venom. It should not be surprising to note that when she is seducing Samson she sings as a soprano, but when plotting against him with the High Priest, she sings quite low in her register.
The priest leaves, entrusting the destiny of his people to Dalila (Recording Notes, p.28) It becomes quite dark, and lightening flashes in the distance. Dalila, thinking that Samson will not come after all, retreats to her house. Samson does arrive, however, intending to tell Dalila that he must leave her for his responsibilities to his god. He is announced by strange, violent motifs from the string section, intensifying his torn and distracted state of mind. Dalila reappears, accompanied by flutes and a dramatic, sweeping harp arpeggio. Once again, she is a pure soprano, singing a welcome to him in a soaring musical phrase which ends in falling submission with the words, “ô mon doux maître” (“oh my gentle master” Saint-Saens, p. 259, translation mine). What follows is an extraordinarily beautiful love duet between the two of them, in which Dalila eventually convinces Samson that she is jealous of his love for his God, and that he should tell her his secret to prove his love to her.
In the biblical story, Delilah uses her voice to nag Samson into telling her his secret in frustration. Dalila also uses her voice, but adds another weapon: “A god far greater than yours, my friend, speaks to you through my mouth… It’s the god of love, that’s my god!” (Recording Notes, p.29, translation mine) Dalila consciously uses love to manipulate Samson, but not to lay down a nagging guilt trip as Delilah does in the Bible. For example, she uses her beauty in a way that Delilah does not; she decks herself out for him twice in the opera, as betrayed by her cry, “For him [Samson] I had decked out my youth and charms!” (Recording Notes, p.31, translation mine) She certainly does goad Samson with words, but is also highly aware that it is love that holds him in her power. After having convinced Samson that she is jealous of the love he has for the God of Israel, she demands the secret from him openly. He refuses, and she turns and runs from him, crying, “Coward! Heart without love! I despise you! Adieu!” (Recording Notes, p.31, translation mine) As in Massenet’s Eve, the crucial moment --in this case, the cutting of the hair-- is not seen on stage. Samson rushes after Dalila, following her into her house: a moment later, as thunder strikes violently, he cries “Trahison!” (“treason!”).
The action in this particular scene does not simply take place in the singers’ words; it is perhaps made even clearer in the music. As the duet begins, they take turns singing, each with a separate accompanying motif. Samson’s parts of the duet are associated with the frantic, low strings, and sometimes he sings slowly in recitative, almost unaccompanied as if chanting a prayer. Dalila’s phrases, on the other hand, are characteristically smooth, high and warm, in a major key, off-set by melodious violins in love motifs (Saint-Saens, p.288). As he becomes more “vexed”, his music becomes less melodic, with restless drums punctuating the strings motifs and heightening the tension. Descending chromatic scales also increase the tension of his indecision. Finally, as she beseeches him to respond to her tenderness, he joins her, singing that he will dry her tears with his kisses. One of Dalila’s love themes, the one she sang earlier as she begged him, “fill me with rapture” (Recording Notes, p.29), returns, played by sweeping strings and now sung by the two of them in harmony (Scene III, sections P & Q). Now that he has satisfactorily declared his love to her and they have shared a love theme, she makes her demand of confidence, backed up by the musical and psychological support of the same love theme that they have shared. Again, plagued by indecision, Samson’s phrases lose their harmony and fluidity, and are confused by intensifying chromatic scales. The music becomes more and more intense as she becomes increasingly demanding, and does not resolve until he runs after her and betrays his secret. This interplay between the themes shows that Dalila does, in fact, use love as a powerful tool to weaken Samson, as evidenced by the power of her beautiful musical themes over his devout and tortured ones. Dalila’s seduction of Samson, like Eve’s of Adam in Eve, is clearly evident in the music.
The third act opens with Samson at the mill, slave of the Philistines. He sings to God in his misery, but no longer in Dalila’s smooth and harmonious love songs; he returns again to slow tones, in a minor key which lends his melodies the air of a Jewish prayer chant. The Hebrews behind him sound almost like a church choir, giving the first scene a weighty, religious aspect and leading us to understand that Samson’s remorse is sincere. In the next scene, we see the Philistines celebrating in Dagon’s temple. These scenes are crucial, as they establish the Philistines in a direct musical contrast to the portrayal of the Israelites. The Philistines, when they sing triumphantly, sound either like they are singing a country folk song, or else something by Mozart: their melodies are light, airy, and allegretto, weaving playfully in and out of each other in a fugue. These melodies are easily associated with their respective images: the rural, uneducated peasant, and the frivolity of the Rococo period. And the brilliant Baccanale Ballet in Scene II further establishes the composer’s view of the Philistines. Although both tribes are located in Palestine, their characterizing music is very different. The Hebrews sing in Hymn-like, slow melodies, weighty church anthems associated with Christian church music, whereas the Philistine Bacchanale – itself a sexual suggestion -- is distinctly Oriental. Accompanying drums, triangles, and light, delicate staccatos contribute to the piece, set in a minor key with a very Arabian sound. So not only are the Philistines uneducated, frivolous, sexually licentious, and pagan, they are also Orientalized by the composer. Dalila, Philistine woman celebrated for “her powers of seduction” (Recording Notes p.33), shares in all these features. And further to the musical themes that reflect poorly on Dalila’s character, she asserts and elaborates on these themes when she claims, “Dalila has today avenged her god, her people, and her hatred.” (Recording Notes, p.34) We learn in this single phrase that she is pagan, a foreign ‘other’, and full of hate. None of these qualities can be considered positive, especially to a nineteenth century audience.
The opera ends as Samson, who has interjected throughout the frivolous Philistine gaiety with his slow, prayer-like phrases addressed to God, brings down the roof of the Philistine temple, concluding both his story and that of Dalila in a final, determined, dominant-to-tonic resolution. Whereas, in the Bible, Delilah was not present at the palace party in which Samson destroys more Philistines in his death than he has during his life, she is present to scream the last “Ah!”(Saint-Saens, p.497) with the priests and dancers. Although she is not punished in the original story, the opera sees her earn her ‘just reward’.
The stories of Eve and Delilah, in their original forms, are about two powerful women. Their power, however, did not derive exclusively from their sexual charms. Rather, it lay in the way in which they took control of a situation, either through reason or through words. These stories of two quite positive female role models have, in their dramatic operatic adaptations, become stories about two women who use sexual power to overcome their male partners, and who are punished for their behaviour. The biblical stories about a woman seeking knowledge and a woman using her words to outsmart her husband are now about women using sexual charms to achieve power and the punishment that follows.
These radical departures do not exist in a vacuum. They derive from traditional interpretations of biblical texts, primarily by the Church Fathers, which have perceived women as temptresses. But the results of such a shift in the crux of the story weigh heavily on women of the period. Coming from a Western tradition, these works not only affirm and help to cement those traditional interpretations, but also deprive women of any positive active role models. The centre of power for all women has become sex: this is the only example that is set when the culture is denied representations of women who use their brains, their money, or their strength to make a positive difference. In addition, as these operas suggest, this recourse to sexual power will most certainly be punished. So if women see sexual charms as their only route to power in a situation, and are informed that it is evil to behave in this way, what is the result? If the only road to power for women is also the road to their own destruction, they are encouraged to avoid the entire situation at any cost. The many heroines of opera, whose words and music are immortalized in popular culture, serve as particular examples to women that their own actions, and even the very fact that they become active, will certainly lead to their own demise (Clément).
Opera continues to be a powerful medium through which stories and values are transmitted to an audience, and many of its songs and characters remain a vital part of our Western popular culture. These two operas in particular are part of a tradition in which stories were adapted for the opera so that their morals would remain fresh and immortalized in the minds of their viewers. The result of this tradition is that the version of the story which is found in the opera becomes more popular and more memorable then the original version. The original is soon supplanted, and the opera solidifies the interpreted version as fact. This is certainly the case with respects to Massenet’s Eve and Saint-Saens’ Samson et Dalila. Although they derive much of their subject matter from the cultural interpretations of biblical stories rather than the original texts thereof, these operas succeed in immortalizing new nuances and morals that were not present before; Massenet’s Eve is even more guilty of tempting Adam with the fruit now that the fruit is interpreted as powerful love itself, and Dalila’s evil plots to hold Samson at her knees indicate a premeditated use of her charms to secure his end. These versions of the biblical stories, immortalized in song, ignore the facts of the original stories. The result is that two formerly positive female figures have plainly become temptresses, blatant users of sexuality and love for power, and are denounced for their degradation and evil, while spectators are encouraged to avoid their fates by avoiding their examples. Long after the show is over, the beautiful love themes sung by Eve and Dalila -- having seduced us as they seduced Adam and Samson -- play over and over again in our heads, wiping clear the memories of the original biblical texts and replacing them with stories of temptation, seduction, and fatal sexuality.
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