“Veni, veni, me sequere fida” (first part)
The Baroque Academy of Santa Cecilia and the Chorus of the National Academy of Santa Cecilia are the protagonists of the first Baroque appointment of the season directed by the master Federico Maria Sardelli: Antonio Vivaldi's Juditha Triumphans.
Composed and performed in 1716 at the Ospedale di Pietà in Venice, the Juditha Triumphans devicta Holofernis barbarie is the only one of the four sacred oratories that we know to have been written by the famous Venetian composer whose score has reached us, therefore extremely precious and rare. It is also the text that Vivaldi first revealed as not only an instrumental but also a vocal author.
The work was commissioned to celebrate the victory of the Republic of Venice over the Turks and the defense of the island of Corfu, and immediately met with great success. The biblical story in fact becomes an allegory of the military struggle of the Serenissima against the Turks, where Judith, the young Jewish widow who kills the Assyrian general Holofernes by beheading him in his sleep, represents Venice and Holofernes the sultan.
The oratorio is characterized by an exceptional richness of the instrumental ensemble which includes five vocal soloists, a choir and an orchestra including numerous unusual obligatory instruments, such as mandolin, chalumeau (or salmoè, an instrument similar to the clarinet invented a few years earlier), organ, viola d'amore and five violas. This aspect, together with the unusual variety of the tonal palette is one of the most valuable reasons of the oratory, which make it an undisputed masterpiece.
The conductor and flutist Federico Maria Sardelli founded the baroque orchestra Modo Antiquo with which he performs concerts in Europe and a protagonist of the rebirth of Vivaldi's musical theater: his are the first performances, engravings and world editions of numerous Vivaldi works unpublished.
Among the major interpreters of the oratory in the Auditorium, we mention the soprano Giorgia Rotolo, Marta Vulpi and Rui Hoshina and the contralto Ann Hallenberg.
Photo credits: courtesy of National Academy of Santa Cecilia facebook page
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