s that the
cast be given here: Samson, Signor Tamagno; Dalila, Mme. Mantelli; High
Priest, Signor Campanari; Abimelech and An Old Hebrew, M. Plancon;
First Philistine, Signor Rinaldini; Second Philistme, Signor de
Vachetti; conductor, Signor Mancinelli. The Metropolitan management did
not venture upon a repetition until the opening night of the season
1915-1916, when its success was such that it became an active factor in
the repertory of the establishment; but by that time it had been made
fairly familiar to the New York public by performances at the Manhattan
Opera House under the management of Mr. Oscar Hammerstein, the first of
which took place on November 13, 1908. Signor Campanini conducted and
the cast embraced Mme. Gerville-Reache as Dalila, Charles Dalmores as
Samson, and M. Dufranne as High Priest. The cast at the Metropolitan
Opera House's revival of the opera on November 15,1915, was as follows:
Dalila, Mme. Margarete Matzenauer; Samson, Signor Enrico Caruso; High
Priest, Signor Pasquale Amato; Abimelech, Herr Carl Schlegel; An Old
Hebrew, M. Leon Rothier; A Philistine Messenger, Herr Max Bloch; First
Philistine, Pietro Audisio; Second Philistine, Vincenzo Reschiglian;
conductor, Signor Polacco.

It would be a curious inquiry to try to determine the source of the
fascination which the story of Manoah's son has exerted upon mankind
for centuries. It bears a likeness to the story of the son of Zeus and
Alcmene, and there are few books on mythology which do not draw a
parallel between the two heroes. Samson's story is singularly brief.
For twenty years he "judged Israel," but the Biblical history which
deals with him consists only of an account of his birth, a recital of
the incidents in which he displayed his prodigious strength and valor,
the tale of his amours, and, at the end, the account of his tragical
destruction, brought about by the weak element in his character.

Commentators have been perplexed by the tale, irrespective of the
adornments which it has received at the hands of the Talmudists. Is
Samson a Hebrew form of the conception personified by the Greek
Herakles? Is he a mythical creature, born in the human imagination of
primitive nature worship--a variant of the Tyrian sun-god Shemesh,
whose name his so curiously resembles? [In Hebrew he is called
Shimshon, and the sun shemesh.] Was he something more than a man of
extraordinary physical strength and extraordinary moral weakness, whose
patr