My express weekend visit to St. Petersburg began with
Camille Saint-Saëns’s opera “Samson and Delilah”. This was a bit unusual
performance, since even though it was in the original Mariinsky Theatre, it was
a concert version which are usually held in the Mariinsky Concert Hall. However,
Olga Borodina is celebrating the 30 years of her artistic career by this
concert; she had her first role in Mariinsky (then called Kirov, of course) in
1988. The role of Delilah has been one of her signature roles and she has
stated herself that “it is perfect both for my voice and my character”. And
when Mariinsky had managed to get José Cura, the Argentinian tenor, whose
signature role Samson is, to sing the role of Samson, expectations were high.
St. Petersburg tried to make my opera visits as difficult
as possible, since the main street of the city – Nevsky Prospekt – was under
renovation and thus closed. I usually use busses that go via this street, so I
had to figure out an alternative route. Fortunately in such a big city there
always are alternative routes, so I jumped into the metro instead and rode to
Sennaya Ploschad and took a so called marshrutka to Mariinsky. Marshrutkas are
mini-buses that are a bit more creative in their stops and schedules than
normal busses. There are several such connections between Sennaya Ploschad and
Mariinsky and I used both 124 and 350 during the weekend.
The story of Samson and Delilah is based on the Bible and
it tells about the Jewish warrior Samson, who rebels against the Philistines.
Delilah is a Philistine woman, who seeks revenge, seduces Samson and finds out
that his strength is all due to his hair. Delilah cuts Samson’s hair when he
sleeps and he loses his strength. Captive, blind and powerless Samson prays to
God to return his strength and when it happens, he destroys the temple of the Philistine
false god Dagon and is buried under the rubble himself, too.
Even though this was a concert version, the main
characters acted as if there were on a stage with sets. I liked very much the
voice of Mikhail Petrenko, who sang the small role of Abimélec. I also liked
Vladimir Moroz, who sang the role of the high priest of Dagon. You could really
see the praxis José Cura has on the role of Samson; every tone and expression
was fine tuned. But the queen of the evening was Olga Borodina. Even though she
is not exactly a teen anymore, on stage she was a seductive, frenzied young
woman with a divine voice. And the absolute climax of the evening was ”Mon coeur s’ouvre á ta voix” that starts
as Delilah’s aria and turns into a duet between Delilah and Samson. I am
absolutely certain, that I wasn’t the only one in the audience who had tears in
her eyes during it.
Mariinsky’s orchestra was conducted in this performance
by the French conductor Emmanuel Villaume. And even though Mariinsky’s
orchestra is pretty much always of rather high quality, under Villaume it was
on fire. I had a good view to him from my seat and I must say that he must have
consumed a lot of calories during the performance, but he also got great
results
No wonder the audience gave standing ovation in the end
of the opera. I will not forget this evening any time soon. WOW!
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| Borodina and Cura |
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| Moroz, Villaume, Borodina and Cura with the chorus |
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