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“Brothers, let us break our chains and lift up the altar of the one God of Israel!” Spanish tenor José Carreras, as Samson, exhorts the Hebrew people, in a 2001 Barcelona production of Samson et Dalila. The operatic Samson is not only a judge and warrior but also a priest and prophet, fighting for his God as well as his people. Saint-Saëns’s upstanding Samson is a far cry from the betrayed lover of Judges 16, who, according to author Clanton, is intent on nothing but revenge.