Few biblical episodes can be translated into a work of rawness and dramatic intensity for the times of Lent like this Judith beheading Oloferne. The beautiful Hebrew woman who seduces and knocks out the Assyrian general with alcohol and eliminates him to prevent him from destroying Bethulia, the Palestinian city, has been a source of literary, pictorial and sculptural inspiration throughout the centuries, but also in music she has left oratorios and operas – such as Mozart's little performed Betulia liberata – on which the same artists have returned more than once.
This is the case of Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725), who matured the stage expression of this plot in a second oratorio known as La Giuddita de Cambridge. He reduces his original, the so-called Giuditta di Napoli, from five to three voices, premiered in the 1790s. The autograph manuscript of this second version is preserved, as musicologist Nieves Pascual recalls in Peralada's hand program, at King's College in Cambridge. And its libretto is no longer by Pietro Ottoboni on the Book of Judith, as in the case of the score that is at the Conservatorio di Musica di San Pietro a Majella in Naples, but by Antonio Ottoboni, the father.
But leaving aside the exciting musicological world of the Baroque, which was experienced last night in the Carme de Peralada church, with the ponderous Vespres d'Arnadí conducted by Dani Espasa, the soprano Serena Sáenz (the decapitator) , the tenor Thomas Walker (the decapitated) and the countertenor Xavier Sabata (as the maid Nutrice who assists Judit in her work), was a first step in the Easter musical offer. The ambitious decision to expand throughout the year made sense in this incipient spring, which has attracted the French, Barcelona and local public competition.
The 240 people who filled the Gothic nave enjoyed this oratorio by the founder of Neapolitan opera, poured here with elegance by Espasa and with a beautiful timbre Sáenz that provided the ductility that good conductors know how to bring out. Walker responded with vocal presence and a bit of haste, although it was Sabata who knew how to squeeze out the drama – without overacting – and won the episode with the stirring lullaby Dormi, o fulmine di guerra. To initial Giuditta with the short and resounding Di Bettulia avrai la sorte, in which she explains how she has defeated the enemy when she shows the general's head.
The festival completed its particular Good Friday with a double: at the end of this edition it was the vocal ensemble Cantoría that offered Tomás Luis de Victoria's Ofici de Tenebres, a journey back a century to the fabulous Spanish renaissance , this one that many other prolific European places must envy.
The opening of the festival had taken place on Thursday with the always effervescent countertenor Jakub Józef Orlinski in a Handel-Vivaldi program similar to the one he gave on his last visit to the Palau de la Música. He was accompanied by the brilliant Giardino d'Amore, who supported him even in the final dance, an improvisation of a Malaguenya with the Cuban violinist clapping his hands that captivated the audience.
The closure of this promising proposal for Easter takes place today, with the presentation of the great tenor promise that is the Italo-British Freddie de Tommasso, the first tenor to sign with the Decca label since Jonas Kaufmann. His second album, Il tenore, went straight to the top of the charts, and the reissue of his Nessun dorma achieved a million downloads.
