Delilah sings this to Samson as part of her seduction scene. He is seduced and sheared, you may remember, but later gets his revenge by bringing down the temple on his captors. If you want more than just a taste of the music from an opera, you may be interested in some of the suites from operas. Two magnificent suites have been formed from the music in Georges Bizet's masterpiece Carmen. Almost all of the music is immediately recognizable.
French opera is usually delicate, like fine French pastry.
Listen to Bizet's music for Carmen and you will soon conclude that it is definitely not typical French opera. This opera is too raw, too robust. The Carmen Suites should be a part of everyone's classical music library, whether you appreciate opera or not. The suite from Richard Strauss' famous 1911 opera Der Rosenkavalier was put together by the well known conductor Antal Dorati back in the 1940s. Dorati set out not to tell the story of the opera, but rather to create something called a symphonic poem in which he would introduce us to some of the music that is identified with the main characters and some of the crucial sequences in the opera.