Juditha Triumphans by Alessandro De Marchi

I listened to Vivaldi’s oratorio Juditha Triumphans. Vivaldi is said to wrote four oratorios but this oratorio is the only one survived. It was performed by Allessandro de Marchi with the ensemble, Academia Montis Regalis.

All the oratorios up to Vivaldi’s times were staged. Oratorio is usually little less lavish than opera but other than this, there is no so much difference between them musically. And this is Vivaldi’s great work of art. It is filled with such beautiful, intimate and passionate music.

This oratorio is the dramatic bloody story of the killing and decapitation of the enemy general by a young beautiful heroine who tries to save her own country by doing so.

Magdalena Kozena sang the heroine, Juditha. And she is wonderful in this role. She’s highly expressive eloquent singer. Her elegant beautiful voice has many different qualities such as freshness, sensuality and decisiveness. Her singing is agile, passionate and her interpretation is deeply mature.

The rest of the other singers, Maria Jose Trullu (Holfernes), Marina Comparato, (Vegaus),  Anke Hermann (Abra) and Tiziana Carraro (Ozias) are all also wonderfully mature singers.

The conductor, Alessandro De Marchi and the musicologist, Michael Talbot wrote very interesting detailed historical and musicological production notes. The sound quality of the ensemble reflected such detailed musical sensibility and expressed very good authentic period sounds. Their sounds are beautifully polished and wonderfully tuned with the singers.

This is wonderful production. But at the same time, their orchestration is also my only and the biggest complaint for this production. Their orchestration is subtle and I don’t think they captured the exuberance of Vivaldi’s music well enough, which is the best part of his musical quality. Other than this, it could be such perfect production.