Handel's Samson is based on Milton's Samson Agonistes and is arguably the finest setting of Milton in the history of English music. Despite Samson displaying Handel's craft at its most sensitively attuned and structurally aware, it is also the most enigmatic of his greatest oratorios. Samson is a theatrical paradox, and an ideal performance needs to juggle ponderousness and assertion.
The biggest obstacle for performers is its gradual acceleration through the emotional gears. The slow moving and very long first act is internally philosophical instead of showcasing Handel's usual taste for extrovert storytelling. The guilt-ridden hero is preoccupied by self-reproach, and has to exorcise his inner demons before being stirred into action at the end of Act Two. Thereafter Handel's operatic qualities explode. Samson's destruction of the Philistine's temple of Dagon is an act of both redemption and suicide, and in many ways Samson is Handel's closest equivalent to Hamlet. Yet Samson is infinitely more deserving of our sympathy: once the greatest hero of his people, he has been betrayed by his wife, blinded, and is now only kept alive for the amusement of his enemies.
Tenor Tom Randle successfully portrayed the angst-ridden hero gradually rediscovering his own identity and finding peace. Singing without a score for most of the evening, Randle's baritonally-inclined voice was more passionate than lovely in this role. "Thus when the sun", Samson's exquisite moment of transcendence, was marred by a loss of concentration. Michael George and John Tomlinson, each in small bass roles, were the finest Handelian singers on display. Harry Christophers directed the first ever performance of Samson at the Proms with obvious enthusiasm. It was refreshing to hear a gimmick-free and honest interpretation, although the heavily abridged version was flawed. The omission of Samson's "Your charms to ruin led the way" was a miscalculation: without this aria his confrontation with Lisa Milne's seductive and scheming Dalila was decidedly one-sided, and Handel did not intend for one of the most wicked women in the Old Testament to seem so plausible.
The drastic reduction of the Overture was particularly regrettable, especially with the Symphony of Harmony and Invention in such fine form. The biggest star of the evening was the Sixteen - on this occasion augmented to 26 - whose technical security, focused balance, and expressive versatility once again proved it is Britain's best specialist chamber choir.
