Samson Et Dalila

Royal Opera House, London                                                                Until June 19

Rating:

One certainty emerged from this undistinguished new production of Samson Et Dalila. Patrons of the London Symphony Orchestra are in for a treat when Antonio Pappano takes over as music director.

His account of the orchestral bacchanal from Act 3 was riveting – spellbinding, in fact – in a way little else was here. Richard Jones’s new, modern dress and often gratuitously violent production actually has very little going for it.

The first two acts, seemingly based on the Israel-Palestine conflict in Gaza, are unnecessarily ugly.

I appreciate that Samson Et Dalila is itself a nasty and violent story of lust, betrayal, torture and death, but it surely can be done – indeed has been done – a bit more stylishly than here.

Everything changes in Act 3, when the Philistines celebrate their short-lived victory with a display of bling-riddled tawdriness that even the Wagatha Christie trial never quite managed.

Best singing of the night came from Elina Garanca as Dalila. An uncommon visitor to Covent Garden, she is a rarity, an Eastern European mezzo who combines vocal and physical allure, and doesn’t look like an old-style East German discus thrower.

Since 2010 she has appeared at Covent Garden only once. More due, I suspect, to the increasingly erratic judgment of Covent Garden’s time-expired casting director than to any deficiencies on her part.

She’s certainly much in demand elsewhere, and there are no shortage of Covent Garden productions in the past dozen years that would have benefited from her charisma.

One decision the casting director did get right, though, was to retain the services of the Korean tenor SeokJong Baek, who stood in most effectively for the injured Nicky Spence.

He sounded idiomatic throughout, with a vocal prowess that filled the auditorium. He will do well.

Elsewhere, most roles were taken by graduates of the in-house Jette Parker Young Artists Programme. All were at least adequate, but there was no sign of a star being born among them.

This was the Royal Opera’s first new Samson in four decades. It could, and should, have been more distinguished.