The Met’s New ‘Samson’ Succeeds Only as Kitsch

NEW YORK — In coming seasons, the Metropolitan Opera will be introducing a range of initiatives to make itself seem less elitist, more approachable and more connected to contemporary culture. There will be collaborations with the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Public Theater; productions of overlooked operas; and a raft of new works, including, for the first time in company history, commissions from female composers.

Sounds great, right? But it all felt distantly in the future Monday, when the Met opened its season with an inert, old-fashioned new production of Saint-Saëns’ “Samson et Dalila.”

This timidly conceived staging, by the director Darko Tresnjak (“A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder”) in his Met debut, somehow managed to be both gaudy and dull. It was an all too clear demonstration of the grand-opera trappings that still shackle the art form, the constraints that the Met’s general manager, Peter Gelb, has long pledged to break from.

There were star singers in the title roles: the tenor Roberto Alagna and the mezzo-soprano Elina Garanca. But Alagna’s rough, patchy singing had you fearing for the current state of his voice. And though Garanca sounded sumptuous, she seldom conveyed Dalila’s heat and intensity.

“Samson et Dalila” is, admittedly, not an easy opera to crack. Saint-Saëns thought this biblical story of a fateful love affair, set against the backdrop of enslaved Israelites and their Philistine oppressors, would best be presented as a stirring concert oratorio. He was persuaded by his librettist to make it an opera.

But the work still has elements of oratorio style. The score is filled with formal structures, including chorus episodes (one written as a fugue) that nod to Bach. In a great performance, and an insightful production, these qualities distinguish the opera from other late-Romantic melodramas. But this “Samson” didn’t feel distinguished.

The opera opens with a prelude depicting the hopeless despair of the oppressed Hebrews. The somber orchestral music is thick with heaving strings and earthy thuds. The conductor Mark Elder — striving, it seemed, for depth and gravity — drew dark, restrained playing from the orchestra. But the result sounded more ponderous than tragic.

The prelude leads into a pleading chorus of the Hebrews, who are convinced that God has turned from them. The great Met choristers made the most of the scene, and lifted the performance for a while.

But the production weighed it down. Given Gelb’s determination to make opera relevant, one might think that this, of all works — it’s set, after all, in Gaza — would scream for an updated concept. The most contemporary aspect of the staging involves Alexander Dodge’s sets, which use striking Islamic trellis designs for the walls of the temple and partitions. Linda Cho’s costumes have the captive Hebrews dressed in poignantly tattered, grayish clothes; the Philistines look like absurd characters from an old-Hollywood costume drama, all garish colors and gold trim. It’s high kitsch.

In this opening act, Tresnjak maintains the stiff quality of an oratorio. The Hebrews, grouped on both sides of a long staircase, face forward and sing directly to the audience. When the valiant Samson appears, he too faces forward to deliver his exhortation to his people to bless the name of God and not lose faith.

Alagna’s singing has always had a rough-hewed, impulsive quality, especially in recent years. But at his best his voice has youthful colors and athletic vigor, as well. He earned strong reviews last season for his performance at the Met in the leading roles of the double bill “Cavalleria Rusticana” and “Pagliacci.”

On Monday, there were times when he pulled you in with his reedy sound and charisma. But whole phrases were leathery and insecure. His pitch often wavered. I eventually lost patience with his tendency to scoop up to high notes.

Garanca has been widely acclaimed for the fullness and radiance of her voice. She can be curiously cool, but not always: At the Met last year, she was a revelation as Octavian in Strauss’ “Der Rosenkavalier,” which evoked persuasive passion in her.

I wish her Dalila had more of that quality. It’s true that a singer has to be careful not to overplay Dalila as stock seductress. And Saint-Saëns leaves elements of the character ill-defined. Is her determination to entrap Samson into betraying the Hebrews a political plot to deliver him to her own people? Has she truly become vulnerable to his love? A mezzo must come up with answers.

Garanca was oddly passive in Act I. An old Hebrew man (Dmitry Belosselskiy) warns Samson to beware of the burning flame in Dalila’s eyes, but you sensed little of that fire from Garanca. During the agitated love scene in Act II, the high point of the opera, Garanca was more sultry and determined.

She directed phrases full of blazing sound and temperament at the tormented Samson. She brought elegant and pining emotion to Dalila’s great aria “Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix,” though I wanted a touch more wiliness in her singing. And these involving moments were fleeting.

In Act III, during Samson’s scene of captivity — shorn of his hair, blinded and turning a mill wheel — the character’s spirit is utterly broken. Sad to say, there were times when Alagna’s singing sounded near broken, too. The temple set in this act is dominated by an enormous statue of the god Dagon, divided in half. Austin McCormick’s choreography for the showpiece Bacchanale looked cheesy, with scantily clad, tattooed men (and, eventually, some women) gyrating before throngs of Philistines sipping wine in garish red clothes. Dagon would appear to condone same-sex couplings.

The libretto ends with Samson, summoning his lost strength through prayer, pushing apart the columns of the temple and destroying everyone within. In this one moment of his otherwise literal-minded staging, Tresnjak went for symbolism: Samson merely ripped apart the chains on his hands as lights flared, thunder cracked and Philistines cowered.

It was hard not to worry about Alagna when his voice gave out on the final high B-flat. But to his credit, against all odds with this staging, he tried mightily all night.

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‘Samson et Dalila’

Through Oct. 20, then again in March with new lead singers, at the Metropolitan Opera, Manhattan; 212-362-6000, metopera.org.