‘Samson’, Royal Opera House 1958

‘Nobody would be bored’: Samson at Covent Garden

Handel died in 1759, and 200 years later England commemorated its favourite
adopted composer with a thoroughness that could almost be called Germanic.The
Royal Opera played its part, though possibly in doing so invited the tart rejoinder
‘And not before time!’: for nothing of Handel had been produced within the
lifetime of the present building. Perhaps the authorities were aware of ground to be
made up, and in fact their contribution appeared rather before time in the October
of 1958. Samson was given first at the Leeds Triennial Festival and came to Covent
Garden the following month. A more curious feature was that, with some 44
operas to choose from, the work selected was an oratorio.

Samson is of course a dramatic oratorio and at least as suitable for stage production
as Milton’s Samson Agonistes, which is one of its textual sources. Critical opinion,
notably that of Winton Dean, had for some years been insisting that not only were
the operas themselves highly dramatic but that the oratorios had a strong dramatic
element too. Even so, it was widely felt that Samson was a somewhat perverse
choice and in the event the complaint was raised promptly and consistently that
this was essentially a production of ‘oratorio in fancy dress’.

Certainly care for the visual part of the production had not been neglected. Oliver
Messel’s sets remain vivid in the mind 50 years later. Classical columns and arches
receded into the distance, and raised areas either side of the stage housed the
chorus.The set lent itself well to imaginative lighting, and many will remember the
lovely effect of dawn over Gaza after the fall of the Temple, with Samson’s body
borne on stage to the music of the Dead March from Saul. Costumes suggested
Handel’s own times rather than the Bible’s, Delilah’s being described by Messel as a
‘heavily jewelled, wasp-waisted Restoration gown’. Advance publicity made much of the element of spectacle. The Daily Express assured its readers (and this was
ironical in view of its critic’s subsequent reactions) that the 200-year-old piece
would be ‘turned into a lavish musical, glowing with colour and splendour’:
nobody, they added, would be bored. In fact Herbert Graf’s direction met with a
good deal of criticism.The chorus remained static in its tiered seats, like the ladies
and gentlemen of any choral society, and the principal singers were described as
‘holding on to poses and facial expressions until they hurt’. Where there was
movement it was overdone, as in the staging of the double chorus of Israelites and
Philistines calling upon their respective gods, which was described as ‘high-spirited
to the point of pantomime’.

It is hard to resist the suspicion that the critical battle-lines had been drawn up
before the curtain rose in Leeds, let alone London. In general, the more thoughtful
and responsible kind had begun with a great wish to see the Covent Garden
experiment succeed. For us today Handel’s operas are so much part of the course
that we may not appreciate how novel a stage production was in those not-so distant
days. It would not be true to say that such enterprises were unknown, or
that Samson itself had not been staged before. But previously it had been left to
amateur or semi-amateur groups, mainly in the universities. This venture at the
great national opera house was nevertheless overdue, and the weight of opinion
welcoming it in kind can be gauged by the growth over the next 50 years of what
almost amounts to a Handel opera industry.

Some hostile reviews were published under flagrantly philistine headlines: ‘Kneesbend
can’t put a kick in this fossil’, proclaimed the Express, conveniently forgetting
their predictions of lavish spectacle and no boredom.This prefaced a rain of cold
water from their critic Noel Goodwin: ‘Once a week until Christmas Covent
Garden is turning itself into an old curiosity shop.’ The ‘knees-bend’ referred to the stylised movements of the dancers which in the critic’s view were a particularly absurd contribution to an overdressed pageant. Others found points to criticize
amid a more pervasive sense of gratitude for beauties that were visual as well as
musical.Thus Andrew Porter in the Financial Times wrote of the scene on stage as
being ‘like great biblical canvasses of Tiepolo brought to life’. In The Manchester
Guardian Philip Hope-Wallace spoke of ‘a world of magical perspectives, noble,
deeply touching, extraordinarily satisfying’: in spite of which he could not refrain
from adding ‘Is the total effect [of the staging] slightly that of a large pink
meringue’.

Hope-Wallace is probably one of the few critics of his day who are fondly
remembered in ours. He was a naughty man and enjoyed finding (for example)
pink meringues in biblical canvasses. He also liked a larage canvas and usually
showed awareness of the present in relation to the past.Thus when he turned his
attention to the singers he began, as many did on this occasion, at the end. Joan
Sutherland, her Lucia di Lammermoor still a year off, was then a workaday member
of the company, and her emergence to sing ‘Let the bright Seraphim’ made a
glittering finale. Hope-Wallace spoke of her as a ‘glorious soprano’ whose
performance nevertheless ‘lacked that absolute assurance it would and must have
had from such Handelians as Albani in a bonnet and bustle at the Crystal Palace.’
He could not have found much encouragement for such assurance from Albani’s
two dismal Handel recordings, but no doubt she was there for the bonnet and
bustle – and possibly so that the new soprano should not get ideas above her
station.This was indeed a huge personal triumph for her and a harbinger of the
annus mirabilis ahead, with Lucia at Covent Garden and the no less admirable
Rodelinda with the Handel Opera Society at Sadler’s Wells. John Warrack in the
Daily Telegraph wrote of her ‘pure, radiant Handelian singing, with a run up to a
thrilling top D’. Desmond Shawe-Taylor, in his first week as Ernest Newman’s
successor at the Sunday Times, concluded: ‘it was magnificent, but it came a little
too late’.

The famous solo, with its trumpet obbligato, comes after Samson has brought down
the Temple, and the chance to say that Sutherland brought the house down too was
not neglected. Several in the audience evidently felt that it brought a touch of
brilliance where that was badly needed. Such comments, especially as we now
listen to the recording, rebound rather uncomfortably on the critics themselves.
And we cannot be altogether sorry for them when for the rest of the evening they
had been present at one of the great performances by a man who was certainly
among the great operatic artists of his century.

Unlike Sutherland, Jon Vickers had already gained the status of an international
celebrity. Before the premier at Leeds, the Yorkshire Evening Post carried an article
with details of his current schedule (he was just back from Bayreuth and straight
after the last performance of Samson would fly to Chicago for a Beethoven Ninth
and on to Dallas for Medea with Callas).The debut at Covent Garden which had
launched his career at the top was only a year in the past, but he was now firmly
established and would hold his position for decades to come. His religious
convictions were soon to be notorious among journalists, but the local reporters
cannot have known what hit them when they received what they called
‘a dressing-room dissertation’ at the end of which Vickers disarmingly remarked
‘I sound like a preacher, don’t I?’

The intense commitment of his Samson was everywhere acknowledged;
less unanimous was the verdict on his singing. A severe critic at the time was
William Glock who wrote for the New Statesman: ‘He has still to achieve a more
noble style before he becomes a singer of the highest class.’ Hope-Wallace gave a
carefully considered assessment: ‘Although there was some roughness in his
Handelian style, it would be a poor-spirited critic who did not record a large
balance of gratitude.’ John Warrack thought Samson his best part to date and
Andrew Porter was blessedly specific: ‘His utterance of the phrase ‘No sun, no moon’ sent a thrill throughout the theatre.’ For those who heard him throughout
his career and who naturally tend to remember him in his later performances,
it is wonderful to hear the freshness and yet the intense solidity of his voice
in these early years. And if any listener to the present recording who was not
familiar with the effect of that voice in a large house may be inclined to criticise
the quiet singing as ‘unsupported’ or even falsetto, he can be assured that Vickers’
softest notes would rise to the back of the gallery at Covent Garden and sound as
though they came from just a few rows ahead.

Other soloists were welcomed with some qualifications. Joan Carlyle was
reckoned an improvement on Elisabeth Lindermeier, who sang Delilah at Leeds,
but I remember thinking her no more than frigidly efficient. Laura Elms, in her
first season, was considered (by John Warrack) ‘touching’, Joseph Rouleau
‘sonorous’ and David Kelly ‘sturdy’. The work of the orchestra under its 31-yearold
conductor from Cambridge was praised (by the severe Glock) as ‘worthy’,
and Raymond Leppard himself had not yet incurred the full displeasure of the
purists. But the true hero, if that can be spoken of collectively, was the chorus.
For its master, Douglas Robinson, the production must have brought particular
satisfaction. Perhaps to this should be added a word for those who made the
difficult editorial decisions: Lord Harewood, who was much involved, said that the
guiding principle had been to produce a version that would be effectively dramatic.
And Covent Garden’s administrators deserve some credit too. They risked the cries
of ‘fossil’ and ‘oratorio in fancy dress’. They made amends for many years of
neglect, and they brought honour both to the house and to Handel.
C John Steane, 2009

Georg Frideric Handel (1685-1759)

Samson

Track 1:  Act 1

Track 2:  Act 2

Track 3:  Act 3

This recording was made from a relay of a performance at the Royal Opera House on 15 November 1958.

The recording comes from the Harewood Collection at Music Preserved.

Text adapted by Newburgh Hamilton from Milton’s Samson Agonistes
and other poems · Performing edition by Raymond Leppard.

Remastering by Roger Beardsley

• Jon Vickers
  Samson
• Joan Carlyle
  Delila
• Lauris Elms
  Micah
• Joan Sutherland
  Israelite woman
• David Kelly
  Harapha
• Joseph Rouleau
  Manoah
• The Royal Opera Chorus
  
• The Royal Opera House Orchestra
  
• Raymond Leppard
  Conductor