Have you ever wondered whose picture decorated the whole of Vilnius? Just after the end of the decadent Ch. For Gounod's "Fausto" frenzy, Vilnius City Opera, together with the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra led by maestro Gintaras Rinkevičius, is already preparing for the main premiere of this season on December 6-10. - To Samson and Delilah by Camille Saint-Saëns. It was precisely in decadent Paris that G. Rinkevičius and D. Ibelhauptaitė discovered in 1876. an opera that was created and made its way to the stage for a long time, without which the repertoire of any mature opera theater cannot be imagined today. It was for this performance of the director Dalia Ibelhauptaitė that the famous Lithuanian painter Andrius Zakarauskas donated his painting, which became the image of a poster seen all over the city.
Along with maturity, the "bohemians" who once opened the opera to the masses, this time embark on a journey of artistic experiments and collaboration. At its beginning, there is a painting by the painter A. Zakarauskas, which began its life at an exhibition in Berlin and decorated billboards in Vilnius, showing a kissing couple and a male silhouette raising his hand in the distance. Having destroyed the "elitism" of opera, today VCO makes available to the general public the painting valued by artists, critics, gallery owners and curators. The painting that becomes the face of the performance - finally, after a long search for a painter, D. Ibelhauptaitė's dream of several years has come true. At the same time, this is an important step in the history of Lithuanian performance poster design, where you can find posters that could have turned into independent paintings, or vice versa, but these are long-forgotten times. Today, photography and conceptual text solutions prevail here. And yet, special occasions create an environment for special collaborations:
"I'm interested when a painting or an image has many references, many question marks: why is it this way, why is it different, what is this time?" Is it the past, is it the future, is it always like this... Like the Last Supper. When did it take place? A couple of thousand years ago? Or does it happen all the time? Perhaps that situation is still happening today. All those references and question marks that appear in this painting are extremely important to me", - says A. Zakarauskas about his work, admitting that he was creating for the theater for the first time and never imagined that he would end up here not painting scenography, but creating an image that was born before the performance itself. It is probably not by chance that the painter, commenting on such, at first glance, romantic picture, talked about the time of the situation...
We all know the story of Samson and Delilah as a story of love and betrayal, and we often forget all its circumstances: "First of all, for me, this story is political: the struggle between peoples to the bitter end, to the point of destruction, a story based on different faiths, traditions and worldviews . There is a fight here because of differences and there is no morality, no decency, - there are no norms of an honorable fight and the only goal is to win and destroy the other in a dishonorable, slanderous and even, I would say, terrorist fight.", director Dalia Ibelhauptaitė says, asserting that " "Samson and Delilah" is indeed a thoroughly modern story, telling the story of a millennia-long struggle between two peoples. There are constant conflicts in the world, accompanied by intolerance of other faiths, people, forgetting that there are not only black and white sides. The battle of religious beliefs also fuels the passions of "Samson and Delilah", and the methods used in it are the same as today: manipulation of people, their minds, knowledge and faith, making them tools of war. This is how the Philistine priest uses Delilah, her mind and erotic powers, in order to subdue the mighty Samson and learn the secret - to discover his weakness.
With the image of Samson, a very important line of the national hero also appears in the play. Who is this person with special powers? "We very often idolize our leaders. Although Samson in the opera is not such a "superhero" as in the Bible, he is still the best, the most influential, the bravest, the most refreshing... but he has one weakness - he cannot resist the temptations of a woman, her sensuality. And because of one woman, he betrays and destroys his nation... such a banal and domestic personal desire kills thousands... Perhaps Samson is not killed, but symbolically blinded so that through his suffering he can see the truth and, after seeing it for the last time, find the strength to destroy those who destroyed his nation ", the director shared her thoughts about the opera story that inspires her.
And yet, once composed by the composer specifically for the mezzo-soprano soloist Pauline Viardot, this opera focuses on the story of Delilah. To this day, it is this role that is the most sought-after and most appreciated in soloists' repertoires. It remains to be agreed that not only the music, but also the character, the character impresses in the role. Her story is the most interesting for the director: "Yes - Delilah is manipulated by sorcerers and uses methods comparable to espionage, but she herself is definitely not a victim - she understands perfectly well what is happening." Does she love Samson? Not really. Her driving force is revenge and that is what makes her the modern woman - a fighter.
I really don't want to romanticize a story wrapped in the veil of biblical legend, but rather to look back at the bare emotion and the aggressive, brute force that manipulates feelings and see how it has been used throughout the ages. Therefore, there is no need for a specific era, situation, as we had chosen, for example, in "Tosca". The only thing that matters is that in Samson and Delilah there is a battle of religious beliefs, so it is fierce, aggressive and strategic. There are no sentiments in it - here everyone knows exactly what they are doing, there are no rights here, just as there is no single winner."
The memorable part of Dalila will be performed by one of today's strongest mezzo-sopranos - Justina Gringytė, who has sung on the stages of London's Covent Garden, Moscow's Bolshoi Theater, Scottish, Welsh, Madrid, and Lisbon operas, and also - who shone in the role of Azučena in "Troubadour", one of the "bohemian" old-timers - Jovita Vaškevičiūtė. The role of Dagan Žynis is entrusted to Kostas Smorigin, who is leaving for London for a double debut at the Royal Covent Garden Theater in London just after this premiere. Well, the role of the hero will go to the upcoming 2019. Kristian Benedikt for New York Metropolitan Samson.
