Academy Journal

Volume 1 Number 2

Giuditta Judith | March 9th and 10th

Academy Journal academyofsacreddrama.org Jeremy Rhizor Publisher Kate Bresee Academy Journal Editor Roger Beaubien Copy Editor Christopher Browner Reviewer --CONTRIBUTORS Elena Ciletti Kelley Harness Madeleine Harris Anthony Ssembaya Abigail Storch Jane Tylus --The Academy Journal is a publication of the Academy of Sacred Drama, Ltd. The Academy is a not-for-profit corporation in the State of New York and is federally recognized as a tax exempt public charity under IRC Section 501 (c) (3). Donations to the Academy are tax deductible.

--Subscription to the Academy Journal is available to members of the Academy of Sacred Drama.

Table of Contents Letter from the Publisher BY JEREMY RHIZOR

03 Domenico Freschi, Giuditta BY JANE TYLUS

05 Generous Widows: Judith and Female Patrons in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries BY KELLEY HARNESS

07 The Sword of Judith, the Head of Holofernes, and the Virgin Mary BY ELENA CILETTI

11 The way it felt when the sun slowly set through Compline and Untitled BY MADELEINE HARRIS

14 Reading Judith in the Age of the Vikings BY ABIGAIL STORCH

15

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--Except where otherwise noted, the content of this magazine is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license. As long as the Academy of Sacred Drama and the relevant author are properly attributed, all articles in this journal may be reprinted or distributed for any non-commercial purpose. For more information, email us at [email protected].

Interview with Anthony Ssembaya

19 Yale Schola Cantorum Performs Heinrich Schütz’s Weihnachts-Historie BY CHRISTOPHER BROWNER

22

radical positive change does not come from

Academy Journal 1.2, 3-4 (2018) Printed in the United States

fame or military strength or money. Rather, positive change comes about when we respond to the call of the circumstance at

Letter from the Publisher

hand by courageously pursuing the highest good with a deep understanding of the value of our goal.

BY JEREMY RHIZOR In the Book of Judith, the city of Bethulia controls the mountain pass through which the invading forces of Holofernes must travel to reach the city of Jerusalem and its Temple. The forces of Holofernes cut off Bethulia’s water supply, and Judith alone stands between the desire of her people to surrender and the intentions of Holofernes. If Bethulia was to surrender, the people of Bethulia would have to submit to the control of the invaders or be slaughtered, and the

The story of Judith has been used historically as both a personal and a communal appeal to rise against the forces of evil (or the power of the invader) and to embrace one’s identity as it relates to God and neighbor. In today’s world the challenge of the Book of Judith can be tricky to confront. Everyone seems to be able to identify wrongdoing in others, but we often seem to overlook our own corrupted intentions and lack an understanding of what is truly good.

Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem would be

The Academy of Sacred Drama’s timely focus

destroyed.

on the story of Judith is a rousing and

Judith walks a very fine line between making the situation of her people even worse than it already is and saving her people. She has limited power and does not control armies, and her bold plan has a high chance of failure.

However,

she

responds

to

the

situation at hand with a deep self-awareness and a firm trust in her God. She woos Holofernes and cuts off his head in the night. This one brave action changes the fate of her entire people. Although we might not be able to relate directly to her method, her story is an incredibly empowering message for people of every age. It encourages us to believe that

hopeful response to pervasive currents of contemporary

discontent.

To

begin

to

respond to the realities of our own time, we turn first to the lessons of history. In this Academy Journal, Abigail Storch recalls an epic Anglo-Saxon poem that follows the life of Judith and parallels Beowulf in the age of the Viking invasions. Jane Tylus reminds us that,

fittingly,

dozens

of

Judith-themed

oratorios were written during the time of the Ottoman-Venetian

and

Ottoman-Austrian

Wars. And Elena Ciletti explores meditations on the Judith story from late Renaissance and early Baroque art. We bring the Judith story to modern times in an interview with Tony Ssembaya who is Academy Journal | 3

goodwill, let us courageously respond to the challenges of our time and circumstances. May we enrich our communities with great ideas,

acts

of

charity,

and

well-placed

creations in art and music. [-]

Jeremy Rhizor speaks at an oratorio reading on November 17, 2017 at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in New York City.

Jeremy Rhizor is a violinist, the artistic director of the Academy of Sacred Drama, and the publisher of the Academy Journal. He dedicates

changing the conditions of his Ugandan

his time to exploring the world of sacred

community by enabling access to education

dramatic music and searching for appropriate

for children. And we highlight the efforts of

boundaries

the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale as they

communal and individual nature of humanity.

explore

other

sacred-dramatic

performance

by

our

understanding

GIUDITTA the first American performances of Antonio Draghi's seventeenth-century oratorio

This Academy Journal is just the starting point for ongoing discussions, and it is released in preparation for our upcoming

---

performances of Antonio Draghi’s Oratorio di

Friday, March 9, 2018

Giuditta. Our March 9, 2018 performance at

7:30 PM at Marquand Chapel

Marquand Chapel at Yale Divinity School in

Yale Divinity School, New Haven

Haven,

CT

will

mark

the

North

American premiere of Draghi’s seventeenth century exploration of the Judith story. And

Saturday, March 10, 2018 7:30 PM at Corpus Christi Church 529 West 121st Street, New York City

on March 10, 2018 we will perform for

Tickets are $10-$50

Academy members and New York City

available online or at the door academyofsacreddrama.org

concert goers at Corpus Christi Church. Academy

oratorio

the

Oratorio di

Christopher

Browner.

New

of

musical

themes in a review of a Yale Schola Cantorum

in

performances

are

opportunities to engage both emotionally and intellectually with the timeless stories of

The Academy of Sacred Drama presents the North American

premiere

of Antonio

seventeenth-century ORATORIO

DI

Draghi’s

late-

GIUDITTA. The story

depicts the Book of Judith's heroine preserving her community and faith from a tyrant. Likely first

the oratorio repertoire, and they provide a

performed at the chapel of the empress dowager,

unique opportunity to make friends and

Eleonora, in 1668, the Academy’s performance will

explore opportune topics. As an artistic and intellectual academy, and as people of 4 | Academy of Sacred Drama

reflect the order of Eleonora’s oratorio services with a lecture by Judith Malafronte (Yale music faculty) replacing what originally would have been a sermon.

“Guerra” — “War!” It is, notably, a word she

Academy Journal 1.2, 5-7 (2018) Printed in the United States

never uses in the Bible. And, in fact, Catholic Europe was at war in

Domenico Freschi, Giuditta

the late 17th century, with both its Protestant

BY JANE TYLUS

Freschi’s

enemies to the north, and its Muslim enemies to the east.2 Ten years before

Professor Tylus spoke at the oratorio reading

of

November

18,

2017.

Her

contextual talk was in place of the sermon often found between oratorio halves. She summarized her talk for the Journal.

of the Old Testament — or, more precisely, of the Old Testament’s deuterocanonical or apocryphal books. A solitary widow who up

against

the

godless

general

Holofernes, her story has long furnished a

compelling

representation,

subject such

as

for the

was

performed,

the

Ottomans had secured Athens from the Venetians and were using the Parthenon to store their gunpowder; ten years after Giuditta,

the

Ottoman-Venetian

and

Ottoman-Austrian Wars would be raging. Indeed, the Judith that we see in Freschi’s —

Judith is one of the most fascinating figures

rises

Giuditta

artistic disturbing

painting by Artemisia Gentileschi depicting Judith and her handmaiden in the very act of decapitating their enemy. A century after Gentileschi committed her gruesome image to canvas, Domenico Freschi composed his oratorio Giuditta, in 1705. It came in the midst of a sudden, even surprising burst of plays, poems, operas, and oratorios on the Hebrew dynamo, including an oratorio by Alessandro Scarlatti first performed in Rome in 1693.1 Why there was such attentiveness to Judith at the dawn of the 18th century is beyond the scope of these remarks, but perhaps one of the last words Freschi’s Judith utters at the end of the first act, right before the intermission, can furnish a clue:

and Scarlatti’s — oratorios is a militant Judith. She is comfortable arguing openly for war in a way that differs strikingly from her more restrained appearance in the Bible. There, the most that she says to Bethulia’s leaders is an enigmatic line that God has chosen her to stop the Assyrians, after which she prays and departs for Holofernes’s camp. Freschi’s Judith will also beguile, seduce, and murder Holofernes, and return -----------1 To which Freschi’s Giuditta contains some notable similarities, such as the five-character cast and a major role for the Hebrew king, Ozia. See the helpful program notes by Xavier Carrère, for the CD of Alessandro Scarlatti, La Giuditta, directed by Martin Gester; available at http://www.eclassical.com/shop/17115/art44/47 92644-4d2407-3760135100040_01.pdf. For the larger context of oratorio and literary production about Judith in the period, see Paolo Bernardini, “Judith in Italian Literature: A Comprehensive Bibliography,” in Episodes in Early Modern and Modern Christian-Jewish Relations: Diasporas, Dogmas, Differences (Newcastle-on-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2016), 139–57, and the essays in The Sword of Judith: Judith Studies across the Disciplines, ed. Keven R. Brine, Elena Ciletti, and Henrike Lähnemann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

Academy Journal | 5

to her city in triumph. But in the oratorio,

the Assyrian messenger Vagao, he quickly

Holofernes is actually the easier challenge.

offers to capitulate once the siege has

He immediately falls in love with the fetching

begun: “Let him come, let Holofernes come.”

Hebrew widow, who calls him her “tesoro” or

Judith is quick to disagree — “Ozia, che

treasure in a lyrical love duet that would be

pensi?” — “whatever are you thinking?” —

delightful were we unaware of the duplicity

and she goes off to her room to “speak with

of the lady whom Holofernes will call his

the great lord of the world”: not the human,

greatest triumph. The tougher challenge, as

fallible Ozia but the Hebrews’ God, who will

Freschi stages it, is Ozia, king of Bethulia, far

fill her with the “force that toughens even

less confident in God’s support for the

cowards.”

Hebrew people than is Judith herself — and by extension, it turns out, far less “manly.”

Throughout

his

career

Freschi

was

fascinated by enterprising if difficult women.

As a result, Judith seems almost to have

Helen of Troy, Circe, Berenice, and “Tullia

more in common with Holofernes, whose

superba” (the proud Tullia, who ran over the

first word in the oratorio — “guerrieri,”

body of her father, the last king of Rome,

warriors — will be echoed by Judith’s

with her chariot) dominate his operas. His

“guerra.” Moreover, given that Holofernes

preference for his leading ladies is reflected

was sung by the counter-tenor, the similar

in the fact that in Helena rapita da Paride, for

upper registers of the soprano and castrato

example, the soprano’s arias take up some

voices argue sonically for the characters’

three-fourths of the work.3 Maestro di

affinities as people of action. Ozia is Judith’s

cappella in Vicenza — the northern Italian

real opposite, and perhaps even the greater

town

danger: he and his city are paralyzed before

classical stage, the Teatro Olimpico —

the great fury of Holofernes and his Assyrian

Freschi was also active in nearby Venice.

army.

Judith

Some of his works featured such an

chastising him for not being sufficiently

extensive cast that they were performed at a

penitent before God, and so much of the

villa in Piazzola, outside Padova; Berenice

The

oratorio

opens

with

score is devoted to her encounters with Ozia that the brief exchange with Holofernes feels almost perfunctory. In their first duet, Ozia sings, “Until I placate Heaven/ I shall weep,” while Judith says, “Until I placate Heaven/ I shall pray.” Even though Ozia speaks forcefully in his initial exchange with -----------2 As Jude Zilik suggested in his essay for the occasion of the Academy of Sacred Drama’s performances in November 2017.

6 | Academy of Sacred Drama

that

boasted

the

country’s

first

-----------3 Of 86 musical pieces, 69 are for soprano, 3 are “duetti per due soprani,” 9 are solos for bass, and 5 are for tenor: producing what Alberto Zanotelli calls a kind of “monotony” but evidently one praised by the public. For this and other details in this paragraph about Freschi’s life and compositions, see Zanotelli, Domenico Freschi, musicista vicentino del Seicento: catalogo tematico (Venice: Fondazione Levi, 2001) and the brief but helpful pages dedicated to Freschi by Francsco Bussi, “L’opera veneziana dalla morte di Monteverdi,” in Storia dell’opera, ed. Francesco Cavalli and Antonio Sartori, 6 vols. (Turin: UTET 1977), 1:121–82.

it is this very flicker of doubt that allows us to see hope doing its work, as she will transform herself from the strident widow chastising Ozia for his lack of manliness into “la bella Ebrea”: the beautiful Hebrew — and a beautiful Hebrew who in turn will become what Freschi will call “that peerless Amazon.” Jane Tylus speaks at an oratorio reading on November 18, 2017 at Christ Chapel at Riverside Church in New York City.

vendicata has a scene where some 300 people occupy the stage at once, including 100 Amazons and 50 Moors on horseback. Freschi had a taste for the exotic as well as for the luxurious, and he accumulated a sizeable number of artworks. Perhaps not surprisingly, his output of “musica sacra” — the very genre for which Vicenza was known as an important center — looms far behind that of his secular works. Giuditta and Il Miracolo

del

Mago

are

his

only-known

oratorios, although he may be the composer of

an

unattributed

“Saint

Anthony

of

Padova.” And the recent discovery of the score for Giuditta in Vienna suggests that there may be more out there to find. Freschi’s Judith is not all bluster. Behind her actions and prayer lies hope, “speme,” a word we hear throughout Freschi’s piece, and which Judith once pointedly refers to as “la speme mia” — my hope — when she is dressing down Ozia for his lack of faith in God. She has only one brief moment of hesitation when, after resolving in her room that she will “go to the infamous tents of Holofernes,” she adds, “Forse, chi sa — perhaps, who knows? If by my right hand, Bethulia should triumph and Ozia reign.” Yet

Such hope may have guided Freschi’s and Catholic Europe’s own faith as well in those years

of

the

Counter-Reformation

and

Ottoman attacks, years when a pamphleteer would write “Betulia assediata, penitente, vittoriosa”: “Bethulia under siege, repentant, victorious,” a three-part drama that could only be achieved via a Crusade to seize the Holy Land from the Turks. The middle term, penitence, is key to Freschi as well. One had to repent of one’s sins, and perhaps of one’s cowardice and lack of manliness, before being able to discern where victory lay, even if in the unlikely hands of a woman whom Freschi enables us to trust from the very moment she walks onto the stage. Thus does

Giuditta

demonstrate

even

more

clearly than its Biblical counterpart of two millennia

earlier

that

desperate

times

require desperate solutions. [-] Jane Tylus is Professor of Italian Studies and Comparative Literature at NYU. A specialist in late-medieval

and

early-modern

European

literature, her most recent books are Siena, City of Secrets (Chicago, 2015) and the coedited Early Modern Cultures of Translation (with Karen Newman; Philadelphia, 2015). She is the General Editor of I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance. Academy Journal | 7

her letter. The first documented oratorio

Academy Journal 1.2, 8-12 (2018) Printed in the United States

performance there took place on March 6, 1672 — Maurizio Cazzati’s La Giuditta,

Generous Widows

originally performed in Bologna in 1668.3 One can only speculate as to whether

Judith and Female Patrons in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

Eleonora played some role in that choice of

BY KELLEY HARNESS

longer tradition of dramatic Judith depictions

According to the title page of its surviving musical

score,

when

Antonio

Draghi

composed his Oratorio di Giuditta he held the position of vice maestro of the chapel of the Empress (Eleonora Gonzaga), a post he occupied by at least November of 1668 and held until his promotion to maestro di cappella, which he achieved by at least June 1669. Draghi’s ongoing service to Eleonora Gonzaga suggests that the dowager Empress herself commissioned the oratorio for her private chapel, which appears to have been one

of

the

first

oratorios

composed

originally for the imperial court, rather than imported from Italy.1 The Empress actually took some credit for establishing the genre in her adopted city: in December 1661 she wrote to her brother Carlo, Duke of Mantua and Montferrat, that she had introduced some musical oratorios in Vienna that had originated in Rome.2 Curiously, the genre had not yet made it to Mantua by the date of -----------1 On these imports, see Marko Deisinger, “Wiener Aufführungen von Oratorien aus oberund dem nördlichen Mittelitalien 1665–1705. Zur höfischen Oratorienpflege unter den Habsburgern Eleonora II. und Leopold I.,” Musicologica brunensia 49, no. 1 (2014): 43–60.

8 | Academy of Sacred Drama

subject matter, as well. Draghi’s Giuditta contributes to a much in German-speaking lands, from the German and Latin dramas of Sixt Birck (1534) to Martin Opitz’s libretto for a fully sung opera (published 1635), the latter a German adaptation of Andrea Salvadori’s sacred opera La Giuditta, discussed below.4 The figure of Judith also appeared regularly in Jesuit dramas: in Vienna the first such play appears to have been the anonymous Historia Iudithae of 1573,5 while, according to its later 1675 print, Emperor Ferdinand III (Eleonora’s

husband)

attended

a

performance of Nicholas Avancini’s Fiducia in Deum sive Bethulia liberata, which scholars date to around 1643.6 In Italy the dramatic -----------2 Herbert Seifert, Die Oper am Wiener Kaiserhof im 17. Jahrhundert (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1985), 670–71. 3 Paola Besutti, “Oratori in corte a Mantova: Tra Bologna, Modena e Venezia,” in L’oratorio musicale italiano e i suoi contesti (Secc. XVII–XVIII). Atti del convegno internazionale Perugia, Sagra Musicale Umbra, 18–20 settembre 1997, ed. Paola Besutti (Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 2002), 408. 4 For lists and discussion of Judith works in German-speaking lands, see Edna Purdie, The Story of Judith in German and English Literature (Paris: Librairie Ancienne Honoré Champion, 1927) and Otto Baltzer, Judith in der deutschen Literatur (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1930).

Judith tradition extends slightly further back

librettos featuring Amazons, works possibly

into the early Renaissance, beginning with

intended to complement her foundation of

the fifteenth-century plays known as sacre

an order of female knights known as Schiave

rappresentazioni. Spoken plays and, later,

della virtù (Slaves of Virtue) in 1662, whose

oratorios on the subject appeared regularly

establishment she publicized in a booklet

throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth

published two years later.8 Viennese court

centuries. As with contemporaneous visual

operas from around this time also feature

depictions of the biblical heroine, these

assertive

works’ contexts and approaches varied as

Zenobia di Radamisto (1662), libretto by Carlo

widely as did symbolic interpretations of

de’ Dottori and music by Antonio Bertali,

Judith herself, from dangerously armed

which the young Emperor Leopold I ordered

woman to civic heroine and exemplar of

to celebrate his stepmother’s birthday, and

chastity.

Semiramide (libretto: Moniglia/music: Cesti),

Eleonora Gonzaga — praised as “a woman of

female

protagonists,

including

performed in 1667.

such majesty and valor” in the opening

Unlike these historical and mythological

words of Barbara Strozzi’s first cantata in her

heroines,

opus 2 collection7 — likely chose La Giuditta’s

Empress to combine the image of the

subject matter in order to promote the

virtuous female heroine with the public

image of an at once valorous and chaste

demonstrations of Habsburg piety (Pietas

heroine in a manner analogous to several of

Austriaca) so common to the patronage

her other projects. The Empress associated

projects of her husband and his father

herself conspicuously with female figures

before that. Audience members familiar

who combined valor and virtue, especially

with the Empress’s Schiave della virtù and its

after she became a widow in 1657, as

printed rationale might have recalled its

Andrea Garavaglia has noted: in 1662 and

author’s reminder that “so many women

1664 Eleonora commissioned two opera

have brought benefit to kingdoms by waging

-----------5 Jean-Marie Valentin, Le Théâtre des Jésuites dans les Pays de Langue Allemande: Répertoire chronologique des pièces représentées et des documents conservés (1555–1773), 2 vols. (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann Verlag, 1983), 1:12. 6 Andrew H. Weaver, Sacred Music as Public Image for Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III: Representing the Counter-Reformation Monarch at the End of the Thirty Years’ War (Farnham, Surrey, UK: Ashgate, 2012), 88, 94. 7 “Donna di maestà di valor tanto,” Barbara Strozzi, Cantate, ariette, e duetti . . . opera seconda (Venice: Gardano, 1651), 2–11.

Judith

allowed

the

dowager

-----------8 Andrea Garavaglia, “Amazons from Madrid to Vienna, by Way of Italy: The Circulation of a Spanish Text and the Definition of an Imaginary,” trans. Katherine Kamal, Early Music History 31 (2012): 189–233, esp. 219–28. Garavaglia briefly discusses the pamphlet, entitled L’ordine delle schiave della virtù, sotto l’augustissima protettione dell’imperatore Leopoldo primo, instituito dalla sacra real maestà dell’imperatrice Eleonora l’anno 1662 (Venice: Gio. Giacomo Hertz, 1664) [http://www.mdz-nbnresolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn=urn:nbn:de:bv b:12-bsb10005235-7]. Unless otherwise noted, my transcriptions are from the original print.

Academy Journal | 9

war, as is seen.” (“Mentre, tante donne col

Judiths, they deprive Siseras of life

guerreggiare hanno apportato giovamento à

with Jaels, they revenge themselves on

i Regni, come s’è visto.”) The booklet also

Cyruses with Tomryses, they punish

specifies a worthwhile object for the female

rebels with Semiramises, . . . and they

warriors’ military ardor: the infidels of the

remain unconquered victors over all

Catholic Church.10

of them.11

9

Judith appears twice in this defense of

Eleonora Gonzaga’s decision to commission

women’s valor, joining Rebecca, Deborah,

a Judith oratorio fits squarely within her

Esther, and others as a model of physical

other patronage projects, but it was not

strength and prudence, evidenced by both

unique for a woman of her station. Rather,

her speech to the people of Bethulia and her

Draghi’s oratorio contributed to a long

killing

of

Holofernes.

Concerning

the

tradition of dramatic representations of

strength,

the

Judith composed for, commissioned by, or

anonymous author cites Proverbs 7:26–27

dedicated to women. This likely stemmed

(Multos enim vulneratos deiecit, et fortissimi

from the widely articulated belief that stories

quique interfecti sunt ab ea), which warns

of female saints and exemplary biblical

of

women

women constituted the most appropriate

pose to young men, in order to propose

reading material for noblewomen; in the

the possibility of a completely inverted

dedication of his play Giuditta (Piacenza,

relationship

When

1589) to Countess Laura Cecilia Scoto,

their

Giovanni Andrea Ploti deemed the subject

nobility of thought and honesty of strength,

better suited to a woman than a man (“il

the

soggetto di quella par, che più à Donna, che

attribute

the

of

physical

spiritual

women’s

between

purity

author

dangers

and

asserts,

the

loose

sexes.

chastity their

join

power

might

exceed that of the greatest of heroes. The

ad

author envisions armies of such women,

Riccardiana library houses the manuscript of

fighting alongside past heroes of both

a sixteenth-century play entitled Commedia

sexes:

di Iudit intended for a performance by nuns These, these kill bears with Davids, they tear lions to pieces with Samsons, they

slaughter

Holoferneses

with

-----------9 L’ordine delle schiave della virtù, 39; slightly different transcription and translation in Garavaglia, “Amazons from Madrid to Vienna,” 227. 10 L’ordine delle schiave della virtù, 40; Garavaglia, “Amazons from Madrid to Vienna,” 227.

10 | Academy of Sacred Drama

Huomo

si

convenga”).

Florence’s

in one of the city’s convents (Ricc. 2976, no. 4). Martin Opitz dedicated his opera libretto Judith to German noblewoman Margarethe von Kolowrath.12 Later in the century, French -----------11 “Queste, queste uccidono gl’Orsi con David; sbranano i Leoni con i Sansoni; trucidano gl’Oloferni con le Giudit; privano di vita con le Iael i Sisari; si vendicano con Tomiri de Ciri; puniscono i Rebelli con Semiramide; ... e di tutti restano vincitrici invitte.” L’ordine delle schiave, 12.

composer

Marc-Antoine

Charpentier

composed his 1675 dramatic motet Judith sive

Bethulia

liberata

for

the

widowed

Madame de Guise (Élisabeth Marguerite d’Orléans).13 A shared marital status made the subject of Judith

particularly

well-suited

to

noble

widows, especially, it appears, those who exercised a degree of political authority in their own right. On September 22, 1626, for example, Archduchess Maria Magdalena of Austria, widow of Medici grand duke Cosimo II and co-regent (along with her mother-inlaw Christine of Lorraine) for her young son Ferdinando II, sponsored the performance of the first fully sung opera on the subject, Andrea Salvadori’s La Giuditta, set to music (now lost) by court composer Marco da Gagliano. The court commissioned the opera to honor the visit of papal nephew Cardinal Francesco Barberini, who had planned a brief stop in Florence on his way back to Rome after helping negotiate a peace treaty between France and Spain. While framing scenes praise the cardinal’s success and express the hope that this cessation of hostilities between Christian nations might refocus renewed military efforts against the Turks, Judith’s long history as a symbol of Florentine civic heroism seems to have -----------12 Mara Wade, “The Reception of Opitz’s Judith during the Baroque,” Daphnis 16 (1987): 151. 13 Patricia M. Ranum, “Un ‘Foyer d’italianisme’ chez les Guises: Quelques réflexions sur les oratorios de Charpentier,” in Marc-Antoine Charpentier: Un musicien retrouvé, ed. Catherine Cessac (Sprimont: Mardaga, 2005), 85–109, esp. 91–100.

The title page of the libretto of Antonio Draghi's Oratorio di Giuditta with a different title: La vedova generosa (The Generous Widow).

caused

the

especially

court’s

given

efforts

what

to

were

backfire,

then-tense

relations between the Medici and Pope Urban

VIII

(i.e.,

Maffeo

Barberini).

An

extraordinary letter from a court secretary to Florentine secretary of state Andrea Cioli, then resident in Rome, asked the Medici representative to reassure the pope that the opera’s subject was not intended as any sort of reflection on the Barberini family (and

presumably

its

currently

troubled

relationship with Florence and its own worthy widows).14 Just the next year Antonio Maria Anguissola dedicated his own play, La Giuditta, to the widowed duchess of Parma Margherita -----------14 For more on the letter and the opera, see Kelley Harness, Echoes of Women’s Voices: Music, Art, and Female Patronage in Early Modern Florence (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 1–4, 111–41.

Academy Journal | 11

Aldobrandini Farnese. Contemporary poets

Bronzini had used those exact words to

apparently knew of that duchess’s fondness

praise

for the subject: in 1628 Ludovico Bianchi

Magdalena, sponsor of the Judith opera

dedicated his heroic poem La Giuditta to her,

described above. In both instances the

predicting that, like Judith, if the need arose

phrase creates a space where patron and

the duchess possessed the willpower to kill

subject overlap, a resemblance not lost on

Holofernes in defense of her dominions.

female patrons. Judith could and often did

15

At roughly the same time that Antonio Draghi

or

his

copyist

prepared

the

manuscript score of the Oratorio di Giuditta,

his

patron

Archduchess

Maria

symbolize many different types of civic and confessional heroines: to widows, though, she was also one of them. [-]

a printed libretto of the work appeared. Its title page includes much of the same

Kelley Harness is an Associate Professor

information

of

as

the

score,

with

two

Music

and

Head

Ethnomusicology

name is here written out and in the largest

Minnesota. Her publications include Echoes of

type on the page. More crucially, the work

Women’s Voices: Music, Art, and Female

bears a completely different title, namely La

Patronage in Early Modern Florence; “Judith,

vedova generosa (The Generous Widow).

16

Music, and Female Patrons in Early Modern

Cristofano

Italy,” in The Sword of Judith: Judith Studies

thirty

years

earlier,

the

Musicology/

conspicuous differences. Empress Leonora’s

Roughly

at

of

University

of

-----------15 Ludovico Bianchi, La Giuditta (Parma: Odoardo Fornuovo, 1628), 4: “E s’ella non ha occasione, come hebbe l’animosa Giuditta, d’uccidere Oloferni, & di atterrarne esserciti, non le mancarebbe però l’animo di farlo nell’occorenze in difesa della patria, e de’ suoi Stati.”

across the Disciplines; and “‘Nata à maneggi

16 These are listed as two separate works in the entry on Draghi in Grove Music Online. In his review of a 2011 performance of the Oratorio di Giuditta (http://www.operatoday.com/ content/2011/10/drama_or_worshi.php), Italian musicologist Carlo Vitali describes “La vedova generosa” as the subtitle of the Judith oratorio, but he does not list the source of his information. Thanks to Interlibrary Loan I have been able to consult the only surviving copy of the La vedova generosa libretto and can confirm that the two texts are nearly identical except for an additional character in the libretto (Un Cittadino di Betulia) whose one aria (“Gite gite”) is assigned to Testo in Draghi’s musical work. There are also minor spelling differences between the libretto and the score.

Ballettoper. She is currently writing a book on

12 | Academy of Sacred Drama

&

essercizii

grandi’”:

Archduchess

Maria

Magdalena and Equestrian Entertainments in Florence, 1608–1625,” in «La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina»: Räume und Inszenierungen

in

Francesca

Caccinis

the seventeenth-century balletto a cavallo (horse ballet) in Florence.

than narrative clarity is at work here.

Academy Journal 1.2, 13-17 (2018) Printed in the United States

The necessary context is the Roman Catholic defense, against Reformation critiques, of

The Sword of Judith, the Head of Holofernes, and the Virgin Mary BY ELENA CILETTI

dogmas linking Judith with the Virgin Mary, discussed by Bruce Gordon in the previous issue of this journal. At stake was the tenet of

Mary’s

supernatural

timelessness,

foreshadowed in the Garden of Eden and manifested in, for example, her bodily Assumption into heaven and her crowning

The Book of Judith is a gripping, artfully

as its queen. Because such beliefs transcend

wrought

larger-than-life

the earthly parameters of Christ’s human

protagonist. She has inspired a wealth of

mother in the gospels, they were repudiated

symbolism that fuels representations in

by early Protestants as unbiblical.

tale

with

a

every conceivable medium. In keeping with the exploratory spirit and spiritual focus of the Academy of Sacred Drama, this essay takes up two little-known Italian meditations on

Judith

from

late

Renaissance/early

Baroque art. Created by important artists of

their

time

commissions,

for

both

major works

ecclesiastic assert

her

traditional symbolic identification with the Virgin Mary.

Since early Christianity, Jewish heroes of the “Old”

Testament

had

been

read

as

anticipating Mary. This is how Judith comes to appear in ecclesiastic sites from medieval cathedrals onward. The most prestigious case is Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling (1508–12), where the cornerstones of its Christian epic of humanity’s creation, fall, and redemption are Judith, David, Moses, and Esther. Their salvation of their people

Vergelli

prefigures Mary and the Church. Our two

Camillo

artists follow in this path, which had taken

Procaccini (1616–19) recount consecutive

on new polemical heat in the “bible wars”

moments at the heart of Judith’s saga:

that still raged in their time.

Our

bronze

(1590–96)

relief

and

oil

by

Tiburzio

painting

by

her beheading of the Assyrian general Holofernes in his tent (fig. 1) and her transfer of his head to the faithful maid who will carry it on their perilous return home to Bethulia (fig. 2). In affect and style the two images are dissimilar; yet both artists focus our attention on Judith’s sword. Indeed, they organize their compositions around it. More

It is essential to Judith’s Marian symbolism that she maintains her chastity in her adversary’s tent and that she decapitates him. Personified as lust and other basic vices, Holofernes is a “type” of Satan, who enters human history as the serpent in Eden. When Eve succumbs to the creature’s temptations, she sets in motion the Original Academy Journal | 13

Fig. 1. Tiburzio Vergelli: Judith Beheading Holofernes, 1590–96. Bronze relief, north doors, Basilica/Sanctuary of the Holy House, Loreto. [Photo by HeiligerSatyr, 4 November 2016; Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0]

Sin in which all humankind will be snared. Of

the serpent’s head. The step to Judith is

course, it is prophesied that the head of this

predictable. Her beheading of the satanic

serpent will ultimately be crushed (Genesis

Holofernes

3:15), that is, the reign of sin will be ended

Mary’s role in the story of salvation as

by the Messiah to come. Mary enters this

foretold in Genesis 3:15.1 This convergence

scenario with her virginal conception of

creates immense iconic potential for our

Christ, which is allegorized as the crushing of

heroine and for her sword, exploited by

14 | Academy of Sacred Drama

becomes

a

prefiguration

of

theologians and artists alike.

century, it was a monumental expression of

It matters for Judith’s Christian destiny that the story of humanity’s redemption begins at

the

Annunciation,

when

the

virgin

named Mary accepts the angel Gabriel’s

the Church Triumphant. Its paintings and sculptures interweave the full litany of mystical

Marian

themes

in

rapturous

profusion.

announcement that she will conceive the

Among the three pairs of bronze doors on

Son of God. This opens the New Testament

the façade, Vergelli’s set is the finest.

or Law, under an incarnated God. One well-

Together, they serve as the opening salvo in

known way that Judith enters this discourse

the didactic program designed to prepare

is linguistic. The terms in which Gabriel hails

the pilgrims for their encounter with Mary’s

Mary — “Blessed art thou among women”

Annunciation

(Luke 1:28) — are parallel to those used by

materially predicated in the Holy House.

the leader of Bethulia to hail Judith at her

Under the sculptural aegis of the crowned

triumphant homecoming with the head of

Madonna holding the Christ Child (1583, by

Holofernes (Judith 13:23). With this wording,

Vergelli’s teacher), a visual catechism unfolds

our heroine enters major Marian liturgies.

across the doors. It depicts Mary’s Old

Vergelli’s relief is on a portal at the most important Marian shrine in Italy, the Basilica of the Holy House of Loreto. The church was built to contain what are purported to be the remains of the very site of the Annunciation, Mary’s house in Nazareth, miraculously

and

Christ’s

Incarnation,

Testament forbears, beginning with the creation

of

emphasized

Eve. on

Judith’s

Vergelli’s

authority door

by

is the

powerful company she keeps there: she is paired with Moses parting the Red Sea and placed above two other Mosaic scenes.

transported in 1294 to the town of Loreto,

In masterful synchronicity with the context,

on the Adriatic coast. A magnet for pilgrims

Vergelli

from all over the world, the Basilica was

Holofernes as a vivid yet decorous drama,

developed through high-status patronage,

imbued

papal and otherwise; by the later sixteenth

protagonist.

-----------1 This role also fuels Mary’s most controversial doctrine, the Immaculate Conception. For its definitive function in Michelangelo’s ceiling, see Kim. E. Butler, “The Immaculate Body in the Sistine Ceiling,” Art History, 32/2, April 2009, 250-289; it opens with Judith. I sketch Judith’s use in its later defense, plus her other Marian applications, in The Sword of Judith, ed. K. R. Brine, H. Lähnemann, and E. Ciletti (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2010), 345–68. Other chapters in the volume discuss her oratorios and operas.

that creates the expanse of the enemy camp

narrates with 2

the

the

beheading

character

of

of its

In the deft spatial recession

she must traverse to reach Bethulia on its distant hilltop, we see her selfless disregard for danger. And the beautifully balanced composition breathes a spirit of confident -----------2 Two smaller vignettes frame the panel. Judith and her maid setting out on their mission (left); the soldiers of Bethulia, at the city’s walls where Holofernes’ head is mounted, readying to rout the Assyrians (right).

Academy Journal | 15

Fig. 2. Camillo Procaccini: Judith and her Maid with the Head of Holofernes, 1616–19. Oil on canvas, Chapel of Santa Maria del Carmine, Church of Santa Maria del Carmine, Milan. [Photo by Giovanni Dall’Orto, 3 January 2008; copyright holder offers file under an open license]

rectitude true to her chaste persona. Vergelli

advanced the emerging pictorial standards

shows us that the killing of Holofernes is

for religious imagery, in which clarity and

neither driven by emotion nor infused with

dignity prevail. Procaccini, from a family of

eroticism; the mood is almost sacramental,

painters, absorbed these principles during

despite the dense interplay of limbs in the

his early career in Bologna and his maturity

compressed

gives

in Milan; in both cities he collaborated with

compositional pride of place to the mighty

space.

He

pointedly

the clerics leading the reform of art for the

arm and sword of Judith, poised to strike the

Church.

second, fatal blow: in them, all the Marian

celebrated

symbolism of the crushing of the serpent’s

practiced in Marian programs.

head is manifested.3

Ever and

prolific,

he

influential

became figure,

a

well-

His painting of Judith is found in a rarified

Vergelli (1551–1609) was trained in the

Milanese setting, the aristocratic church of

famed regional workshop entrusted with the

Santa Maria del Carmine, specifically its

sculptures at this exalted site. He and

eponymous, jewel-like chapel. Amidst much

Procaccini (1561–1629), each in his own way,

decorative

-----------3 In Judith’s second image at Loreto, she displays the head to the Bethulians (stucco relief, 1611–13, by Francesco Selva, interior atrium). It is beside The Fall in Eden and opposite the Virgin Immaculate crushing the serpent’s head.

itinerary is an echo in miniature of the

16 | Academy of Sacred Drama

panache,

the

iconographic

dynamic at Loreto. Its prelude occupies the public area, where Judith helps demonstrate the Old Testament lineage on which Marian cults are founded. This sets up the ascent in

the inner sanctum, reserved for the clergy,

interrelationships with her oratorios. After

with New Testament scenes from Mary’s life

all, in the Vulgate bible of the Roman

leading the way to her Assumption and

Church, Judith spends her days at home,

Coronation.

praying in the seclusion of a rooftop

The

seamlessness

of

the

theological construct is further expressed in

“oratorio” (Judith 9:1). [-]

the formal elegance of Procaccini’s paintings throughout the chapel. Given the stylistic variety across his career, the harmonious refinement here must be intentional.

Elena Ciletti is Professor Emerita of Art History at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, where she has taught Renaissance and later periods,

In our canvas, the head of Holofernes itself

women artists, and African-American art. She

takes center stage, as we expect in this

has published on the patronage of the last

context. But this does not impede the

Medici, Anna Maria Luisa (1667–1743), and on

pervasive lyricism, which seems to propel

representations

Judith as she sweeps from the tent to drop

Gentileschi and others. She is working on a

the head in the sack carried by her waiting

book on Judith's iconography in Counter-

maid. The quintessential Marian quality of

Reformation Italy.

of

Judith

by

Artemisia

grace is the operative principle overall both chromatically and structurally. This Judith’s airy loveliness reminds us that her beauty, much

praised

important

in

link

her

in

scripture,

her

Marian

is

an

chain.

Procaccini does not forego drama. In fact, he engulfs the women in darkness not only to register the nighttime setting but to stress their vulnerability, to which the arm of Holofernes adds an eerie touch. Finally, the questioning

gaze

of

the

interesting

psychological

maid

opens

Editions & Translations The Academy of Sacred Drama is committed to preserving access to Baroque-era oratorios and increasing their visibility and distribution through the creation of free editions and translations. Editions and translations are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

It

license. Year

matches the development of the women’s

October 2018.

territory.

of

Judith

editions

and

English

translations will be made publicly available in

characters in literature, including oratorio UPCOMING

libretti.

Domenico Freschi's Giuditta Antonio Draghi's Oratorio di Giuditta

In this essay, the works of Vergelli and Procaccini stand in for the often overlooked plentitude of Judith’s ecclesiastic portrayals in European art. Future explorations might enrich

the

terrain

by

addressing

their Academy Journal | 17

Academy Journal 1.2, 18 (2018) Printed in the United States

The way it felt when the sun slowly set through Compline

Untitled

BY MADELEINE HARRIS

I once breathed out a garden fair 

Night comes softly Embracing embers Shrouding quickly Time remembers All days past And all to come Will rise and set From whence they're from Stars the notes She learned to play As night comes in  To love the day A cosmic affair Forbidden sweet Both exclusions  Hardly meet Except at dusk And in the dawn When lovers sigh Before one's gone

18 | Academy of Sacred Drama

BY MADELEINE HARRIS ----Till lush turned into raging grew The vines their eyes broke not the stare Held tight with victims they accrued Choking wakes the night in red With death of slumber inundated The vines their madness quickly fed Each broken breath so boldly bated That breath divorced from temples yonder such dainty petals slowly fall The vines they thirst for care kept fonder      -awake                 towards me                                        those devils                                                               crawl

and 1025 A.D., is a retelling of the story in

Academy Journal 1.2, 19-21 (2018) Printed in the United States

epic poetry. Found in the medieval Nowell Codex,

Reading Judith in the Age of the Vikings BY ABIGAIL STORCH

different

communities

of

of

the

poem

Beowulf,

Anglo-Saxon

directly

follows

indicating

that

audience

read

the

the their

stories

contemporaneously. The poem removes elements of Jewish culture from the story, transposing it into an Anglo-Saxon context,

As all readers know, a work of literature can mean

text

things readers.

to

different

Perhaps

as

interesting as the text itself is the history of its reception — the varying ways that groups of people have interpreted a work of literature and searched for meaning within a narrative.

and highlighting Judith’s status as “the Savior’s glorious servant.” Judith, “a woman elf-brilliant,” brings honor and victory to her people through her wisdom, stealth, and bravery.1 Judith may be understood as the female counterpart to Beowulf; both stories feature heroic figures that use tact to defeat monstrous enemies. Like Beowulf’s encounter with the terrifying Grindel, the

The deuterocanonical story of Judith is no

passage in which Judith slays Holofernes in

exception. Composed during the Second

his bedchamber reads like a battle scene,

Temple period, The Book of Judith is part

each moment described in grisly detail. The

historical drama, part epic romance. It draws

three cantos that remain are the concluding

on many traditions from the Hebrew Bible:

cantos of what was originally a twelve-canto

the military victory of Israel over powerful

work; if the other cantos had survived, Judith

empires and armies, women’s songs of

would likely be considered one of the most

deliverance and salvation, and the canonical

important works of Old English literature.2

stories of Deborah, Esther, and Dinah. Most scholars agree that the story is fictional, and if the number of references in patristic writings is any indication, The Book of Judith captivated both its original Jewish audience as well as early Christians. And, in a curious turn of events, it apparently captured the hearts of medieval Anglo-Saxons as well:

Standing in stark contrast to such an epic poem is the second surviving Old English text about Judith from the same era: a homily by the prolific abbot Ælfric of Eynsham from approximately 1000 A.D. In the homily, Ælfric addresses a group of nuns, relating to them the story of Judith almost

Judith from the turn of the first millennium.

-----------1 Aaron K. Hostetter, Anglo-Saxon Narrative Poetry Project (https://anglosaxonpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/judith/).

The first work, likely composed between 975

2 A. S. Cook, Judith: An Old English Epic Fragment (Boston: Heath, 1889), lxxvi–lxxvii.

there exist not only one, but two major works of literature in Old English about

Academy Journal | 19

exactly as it appears in the Vulgate. “She was

In the 990s A.D., the Anglo-Saxons were

humble and clean, and overcame pride, little

under increasing assault from the Vikings,

and not strong, and laid down the great

powerful

one,” he tells them, before chiding them for

plagued their lands for centuries. An Anglo-

their failure to observe the law of chastity as

Saxon (and thus, Christian) audience would

Judith did after the death of her husband

have

Manasses.

are

the

story

of

that

Judith

had

and

living

immediately identified with the side of God’s chosen people under threat of invasion.

they might fornicate and that they might

Tracey-Anne Cooper observes that during

easily atone for so little,” Ælfric rebukes the

this time of danger, “All sections of Anglo-

nuns. “Take for yourselves an example from

Saxon society had to galvanize to defeat

this Judith, how cleanly she lived before the

their ‘Assyrians,’ the Vikings. The heroic

birth of Christ.” And, in quintessential fire

poem used Judith to inspire greater acts of

and brimstone style, Ælfric doesn’t stop

military resistance, while the homily used

there: “Do not deceive God in the time of the

her to encourage greater acts of spiritual

Gospel in the holy cleanness that you

resistance.”6 For Anglo-Saxons at the turn of

promised to Christ,” he warns, “because he

the first millennium, the story of Judith was a

damns

testament to the hope of unlikely victory

secret

nuns

read

invaders

disgracefully, believing it so little a sin that

the

“Certain

seafaring

fornicators

and

he

scorches the foul shameful ones in hell.”

3

over a great enemy. Ælfric tells the nuns, “In

Ironically, Judith — the woman who “made

her

herself beautiful enough to beguile the eye

‘Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled,

of any man who saw her”4 and pretended to

and he who humbles himself shall be

seduce a general — is cast as the paragon of

exalted,’” and, in a letter, he explains that he

feminine chastity and virginity.

wrote the homily “as an example for you in

As Margarita Stocker notes, Judith is the “good bad woman.”5 She is both wily and pure, wholly ravishing and utterly chaste.

was

fulfilled

the

Savior’s

saying:

English according to our style, so that you will defend your land with weapons against an attacking force.”7

Her complexity allows Anglo-Saxon writers

The wonder of a good story is not only its

to characterize her both as seductive military

-----------5 Margarita Stocker, Judith, Sexual Warrior: Women and Power in Late Western Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 24.

heroine and meek handmaiden of God. But out of all the biblical and apocryphal stories to resurrect in 1000 A.D., why were AngloSaxons talking about this one? -----------3 Brandon Hawk, “Ælfric’s Sermon on Judith” (https://brandonwhawk.net/2017/01/17/aelfricssermon-on-judith/). 4 Judith 10:4.

20 | Academy of Sacred Drama

6 Tracy-Anne Cooper, “Judith in Late AngloSaxon England,” in The Sword of Judith: Judith Studies across Disciplines, ed. Kevin Brine, Elena Ciletti, and Henrike Lähnemann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 28. 7 M. Nelson, ed., Judith, Juliana, and Elene: Three Fighting Saints (Peter Lang Publishing: New York, 1991), 47.

multivalence — the manifold ways it might be understood — but also, perhaps, its endurance. For Jews living during the Second Temple period, the story of Judith was a shout of praise to God for his faithfulness and a celebration of the tenacity of the Jewish people. Over a thousand years later and three thousand miles away, AngloSaxons were still talking about the beautiful woman who slew the great general, and how her unthinkable triumph might be cause for hope. [-]

Abigail Storch is a master’s candidate in religion and literature at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. She currently serves as the editorial intern for religion at Yale University Press and performs internationally with Schola Cantorum, the university’s premiere graduate chamber ensemble.

Artemisia Gentileschi: detail of Judith and her maidservant, 1618–19. Oil on canvas, Palazzo Pitti, Royal Apartments, Palatine Gallery, Florence. [PD-1923, out of copyright]

Academy Journal | 21

men were massacred in what has turned out

Academy Journal 1.2, 22-24 (2017) Printed in the United States

to be one of the world’s worst genocides (though this could have been stopped). At the shores of our lake were dead bodies

Interview with Anthony Ssembaya

floating from Rwanda instead of fish! These people had been killed and thrown in the lake. I have so many questions about this at-

Anthony (Tony) Ssembaya is the founder of the Kirabo Doors of Hope Foundation. His foundation empowers youth — especially girls — in Uganda by offering them a solid educational Ugandan

foundation. national,

Tony

studied

is at

an the

Universität Leipzig in Germany, and has worked

at

the

United

Nations

Girls'

Education Initiative in the United States. Jeremy Rhizor, the Academy of Sacred Drama artistic director, interviews Tony about his work, his vision, and his hopes for his Ugandan community.

rocity that will possibly never be answered. Second, between 2004 to 2007, I found myself working and studying in Gulu — which is located in northern Uganda — where a civil war was raging on. This war was led by Joseph Kony's notorious Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels who are now wanted at the International Criminal Court in the Hague. The time I lived in Gulu was the worst period as women were being taken into

captivity,

education,

and

young

girls

families

denied

broken

an

apart

including locals being sent into Internally

JR: I know you as someone who has a strong

Displaced People's Camps (IDPS). There is no

desire to bring positive change to your

worse experience than being a refugee in

community and the world. Although this is

your own home country! The sight of women

an intensely personal question, could you

and their children running every evening

comment on some of the experiences and

from

hardship that shaped your perspective and

churches and hospitals in fear of attack and

desire for change?

capture by the rebels has never left me.

their

homes

to

seek

shelter

at

TS: Jeremy, thanks for this moment. I will tell you two major events that sparked my

JR: What were the circumstances that first

desire for social activism or social justice. In

led you to adopt a girl? And how did that

1994, I was ten years old and living at the

experience inspire you to enable other

shores of Lake Victoria in Uganda. In April of

children in Uganda to have an education

1994, a terrible event was happening in the

through the formation of the Kirabo Doors

neighboring country of Rwanda — where I

of Hope Foundation?

have strong links. In a period of 100 days, close to one million children, women, and 22 | Academy of Sacred Drama

TS: While in Gulu I visited a family. The mother and father had three children, and

unfortunately two of them (12 and 15 years

sense is your work uniquely suited to your

old) were then not self-reliant (they had

circumstance and vocation?

special needs) because of the effects of bombing during the pregnancy of their mother. They will never be able to walk, feed themselves, or read or write on their own, let alone perform other tasks. There was this seven-year-old

girl,

Anena

Mary,

their

daughter, who was supporting her siblings, and, despite the war, she had hope, was full of joy and was eager to learn. To me, empowering this girl would be empowering a village, country, and world. This is what has happened. As I write this eleven years later, Anena is completing her university degree

TS: I think the story of Judith brings to my mind the following issue: I have lived and experienced poverty. It is my obligation to raise awareness regarding the structures that tend to keep others on the peripheries of society. Poverty is man-made and hence could be brought to an end if mankind chooses to do so. Issues such as access to education, healthcare, and infrastructure should not be a privilege of a limited few. I will do what I can within my means and confines with the grace of God.

specializing in Mathematics and Economics [learn more at: http://blog.ungei.org/ungeiyouthtalks-meets-anena-mary/]. I could not be more proud! What a wonder that God has been so gracious. Through this experience, I came to learn that so many girls and boys are simply denied their right to an education due to many factors such as war, cultural norms,

child

marriages,

poverty,

and

negligence by the state (to mention but a few). The Kirabo Foundation intends to enable, empower, and encourage those kept [for

on

the

more

margins

of

society

information,

visit:

Tony Ssembayar (right) with a Ugandan market vendor in Masaka, Uganda; December 2017.

http://www.kirabodoorsofhope.org/]. JR: To do great good I believe that one must JR: The Academy’s "Year of Judith" depicts a heroine who has a firm trust in God but little power. She finds a way to transform the fate of her community and preserve her faith. Her mission is uniquely suited to her, and by completing it she fulfills her calling. In what

first accept the challenges of the community closest to his heart and then participate in larger (global) communities of thought. How have your studies in Germany and work at the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative contributed to your good work at home? Academy Journal | 23

TS: Before I moved to Germany, I lived for

rights, and democracy. My international

one year in China and spent time in Australia

colleagues are able to make a connection

and later the USA. I have also visited several

between

African countries. This global exposure has

recipients or beneficiaries of the many

taught me that there are always people — in

initiatives

whatever part of the world — that are willing

international/global organizations.

the

policy

and

makers

programs

and

set

up

the by

to imagine and bring about positive change. The question becomes who, where, and when. Sometimes by the time they act, it’s too late, or there is a disconnect or misinformation. Alternatively, there are also those

who

enjoy

fueling

or

advancing

inequality since this serves their interests!

JR: What are your hopes for your community in

Uganda,

and

what

are

your

own

aspirations for the future? TS: My hope for my community in Uganda is that every girl and boy is given a chance to access a proper education and the future

JR: How has your engagement with people from around the world amplified the impact of your own work, and how has this engagement contributed to the work of your international colleagues?

they so much deserve. Less than that is outright denial. At the Kirabo Foundation we are in the process of setting up a classroom block for 200 kids. Any support to us is

highly

welcome.

Reach

us

at

[email protected]. My aspirations for

TS: I think my engagement with people from

the future are several! But for now I could

around the world — like yourself (and I am

say that I desire that the lives of those living

so honored to call you a good friend) — has

at the edge of society are transformed. Let

created a forum for me and I think many

us do whatever we can in our own small

other social activists to bring to the global

capacities. Last week at the World Economic

scene issues that may not otherwise be

Forum

known or which may be kept in the

International released a staggering report of

background

in

Davos,

Switzerland,

Oxfam

An

global inequality detailing the situation of

international network gives me access to

persons living in developing economies.

information which is, in a real sense, power.

These people work hard, but the global

Once this information is shared with people

economic structure keeps a living wage far

at the grassroots level, it empowers and

away! We have to break this system of

helps shape their lives for the better. Today

inequality. That work starts with me and

we

you. Thank you so much, Jeremy. [-]

see

for

many

various

new

reasons.

start-ups

that

do

seemingly simple things but will change the face of the earth. This includes work in fields like

climate

change,

education,

24 | Academy of Sacred Drama

human

opening lines of the Gospel of John. And

Academy Journal 1.1, 25-26 (2017)

Printed in the United States

while the nearly 30-member ensemble was always at the forefront, the first half also

Yale Schola Cantorum Performs Heinrich Schütz’s Weihnachts-Historie BY CHRISTOPHER BROWNER

featured many moments of excellent solo singing, most notably the bright tenors of Haitham Haidar and James Reese and the focused, ethereal soprano of Addy Sterrett. After

a

brief

intermission,

the

group

returned for the centerpiece of the program, Weihnachts-Historie, a sung, quasi-theatrical

The superbly talented singers of Yale Schola

account of the Nativity story that stitched

Cantorum, Yale Institute of Music’s chamber

together

choir

sacred

sacred hymns. A series of scenes connected

music, were still in the holiday spirit on

by a single narrator, the Evangelist, the bulk

for

the

performance

of

various

biblical

passages

and

January 27, 2018, when they offered a radiant performance of Heinrich Schütz’s Weihnachts-Historie (Christmas Story), SWV 435 to a packed audience at New Haven’s Christ Church. The evening — which also featured a selection of other Christmasthemed works by Schütz — showcased the ensemble’s under

the

accomplished direction

of

musicianship their

principal

conductor, David Hill. The first half of the concert comprised six stand-alone pieces all centered on the birth of Christ — from a jubilant rendition of the

The Holy Night, 1655 (oil on canvas) by Carlo Maratta (1625-1713); Gemäldegalerie, Dresden; PD-1923 (out of copyright)

choral “Hodie Christus natus est,” SWV 456

of the singing lay with Reese, who impressed

to an intimate yet engaging duet for soprano

not only with his stamina but also with his

and countertenor “Ave Maria, gratia plena,”

agile voice and penetrating timbre. Sterrett

SWV 334 to a setting of the Marian

reappeared as the Angel of Lord, again

“Magnificat,” SWV 468 replete with vivid text

executing

painting. Throughout, the choir sang in taut

crystalline tone and adept precision. Bass-

harmony, even in passages of richly textured

baritone Matt Sullivan was a commanding

polyphony, as in “Das Wort ward Fleisch,”

King

SWV 385, with its text taken from the

Sharpe, mezzo-soprano Ashley Mulcahy, and

the

Herod,

challenging

and

music

countertenor

with

Bradley

Academy Journal | 25

Haidar blended nicely as shepherds. The chorus, this time playing a more supporting role, further enhanced the storytelling.

Sacred Spaces RUBIN MUSEUM November 17, 2017 – October 15, 2018 The Rubin Museum of Art 150 West 17th Street, New York, NY

Note must be made of the accomplished

Admission: $10-$15

Baroque orchestra that accompanied the

spaces-the-road-to

evening’s proceedings. In addition to a full complement

of

strings,

the

16-person

ensemble featured fluttering recorders —

http://rubinmuseum.org/events/exhibitions/sacredThe Rubin’s ongoing exhibition Sacred Spaces invites visitors to reflect on devotional activities in awe-inspiring places. This iteration, The Road To…, focuses on the act and action of pilgrimage for the

skillfully played by Grant Herreid and Mack

benefit of one’s future self.

Ramsey — dulcian, theorbo, and a brass

Johann Heinrich Schmelzer's Le Memorie Dolorose

section that included trumpets, cornets, and

ACRONYM AND TENET

sackbuts.

Throughout

the

evening,

Hill

marshaled all the musical forces with energy

Friday, March 2, 2018 at 7 PM Church of St. Luke in the Fields 487 Hudson Street, New York, NY

and passion, qualities that clearly translated

Admission: $35-$55

into the group’s spirited performance. [-]

dolorose

http://tenet.nyc/2017-18/schmelzers-le-memorieThis hybrid opera/oratorio tells the story of the Virgin Mary after the death of Christ, as she

Christopher Browner is the Associate Editor at

interacts with Angels, Apostles, and others.

the Metropolitan Opera and served as Opera

Passion and Lamentation: Music for Holy Week

Critic for the Columbia Daily Spectator between

POLYHYMNIA

2012 and 2016. In addition to his writing, he

The Church of St. Ignatius of Antioch

has

directed

operas

in

New

York

and

Connecticut and regularly gives guest lectures for the Columbia University Music Department.

Saturday, March 3, 2018 at 8 PM 552 West End Avenue, New York, NY Admission: $20-$30 http://polyhymnia-nyc.org/events A cappella music by Victoria, Gesualdo, Tallis, Taverner, Lassus, and more.

Events Calendar The Academy of Sacred Drama's events calendar includes musical performances, lectures, exhibits, and other opportunities that we believe will be of interest to our members and audience. Most of these listings are presented by organizations not associated with the Academy. We recommend that you check the website of the relevant organization before making plans to attend one of these events to confirm dates, times, locations, and ticket prices.

The Birth of the Oratorio CHOIR OF ST. LUKE IN THE FIELDS Thursday, March 8, 2018 at 8 PM Church of St. Luke in the Fields 487 Hudson Street, New York, NY Admission: $25-$35 http://stlukeinthefields.org/music-arts/concerts/ The concert will include Carissimi’s best-known oratorio, Jepthe, along with Jonas. Charpentier’s Filius prodigus (‘The Prodigal Son’) and Maria Magdalena stabat by the Benedictine nun Chiara Margarita Cozzolani will complete the program. Giovanni Battista Moroni Lecture GRAND CENTRAL ATELIER Friday, March 9, 2018 at 5:30 PM Eleventh Street Arts Gallery at GCA

26 | Academy of Sacred Drama

46-06 11th Street, Queens, NY

Admission: free (donations accepted)

Admission: free, RSVP [email protected]

http://www.holytrinitynyc.org/bach-vespers/

http://grandcentralatelier.org/lectures-and-

In its 50th season, Bach Vespers presents J. S. Bach's

salons.php

Easter Oratorio. Preceded by a 3:45 PM Pre-Vespers

This talk will focus on the broader context of

Talk by Michael Marissen.

Moroni's work, including late 15th century paintings by Vincenzo Foppa in Milan; the works of Brescian

Luigi Boccherini Stabat Mater

painters Romanino, Moroni's maestro Alessandro

BOURBON BAROQUE AT MIDTOWN CONCERTS

Bonvicino (aka il Moretto da Brescia) and Savoldo.

Thursday, April 5, 2018 at 1:15 PM St. Bartholomew's Church

Antonio Draghi's Oratorio di Giuditta

325 Park Avenue, New York, NY

ACADEMY OF SACRED DRAMA

Admission: free (donations accepted)

Friday, March 9, 2018 at 7:30 PM

http://gemsny.org/index.php/current-season

Marquand Chapel at Yale Divinity School

This program features music for Holy Week,

409 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT

including Luigi Boccherini’s Stabat Mater and the

Saturday, March 10, 2018 at 7:30 PM

New York City premiere performance of François

Corpus Christi Church

Couperin "Leçons de Tenebres" in New York City.

529 West 121st Street, New York, NY Admission: free (March 9th), $10-$50 (March 10th)

A Prayerful Viewing of Sully

http://academyofsacreddrama.org/

CINEMA DIVINA IN NYC

The American premiere of Draghi's seventeenth-

Thursday, April 12, 2018 at 6:30 PM

century oratorio will be presented in the format of

St. Mary's Byzantine Catholic Church

its premiere with a lecture by Yale faculty Judith Malafronte replacing the original sermon.

246 East 15th Street, New York, NY Admission: free (donations accepted) http://media.pauline.org/

I Squared

"Cinema Divina" is based on the ancient prayer

ST. JOESPH'S MUSIC MINISTRIES

practice of Lectio Divina. After reading Scripture and

Saturday, March 10, 2018 at 7:30 PM

watching a film, participants gather in prayer and

Saint Joseph’s Church

share how God inspires through those activities.

95 Plum Brook Road, Somers, NY Admission: $20

Mass in B Minor

http://www.stjosephsomers.org/

BACH VESPERS AT HOLY TRINITY

A concert event that combines the music of Italy

Sunday, April 15, 2018 at 5 PM

with the music of Ireland.

Holy Trinity Lutheran Church

“The Old Verities & Truths of the Human Heart”

Admission: $25-$75

11TH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

http://www.holytrinitynyc.org/bach-vespers/

Friday, March 16, 2018 and other 3rd Fridays

Bach

Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers

featuring J. S. Bach's monumental Mass in B Minor.

3 West 65th Street, New York, NY

Vespers'

50th

Anniversary

Celebration

55 Ryder Road, Ossining, NY Admission: free

Two Buried Cities

https://maryknollsociety.org/what-we-do/film-festival/

WESTCHESTER ITALIAN CULTURAL CENTER

Artists and spiritual writers through the millennia

Saturday, April 21, 2018 at 10:30 AM

know how easily we succumb to fear and insecurity.

Westchester Italian Cultural Center

The films of this series remind us of the joy that

1 Generoso Pope Place, Tuckahoe, NY

awaits once we engage — however slightly — in

Admission: $20-$25

self-emptying love.

http://wiccny.org/events/ A discussion of Pompeii and Ercolano, two very

Oratorium Festo Paschali: Kommt, eilet und laufet

different cities culturally and architecturally. Both

BACH VESPERS AT HOLY TRINITY

were buried by the same volcano, Mt. Vesuvius, in

Sunday, April 1, 2018 at 5 PM

79 AD, but under very different conditions and with

Holy Trinity Lutheran Church

different results. Presented by Toni McKeen.

3 West 65th Street, New York, NY

Academy Journal | 27

Cover art is Johann Georg Bergmüller's Judith slaying Holofernes, 1705–62. Engraving, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. [PD-1923, out of copyright]

academyofsacreddrama.org

available online or at the door

Tickets are $10-$50

West 121st Street, New York City

7:30 PM at Corpus Christi Church

Saturday, March 10, 2018

Yale Divinity School, New Haven

7:30 PM at Marquand Chapel

Friday, March 9, 2018

---

the first American performances of Antonio Draghi's seventeenth-century oratorio

GIUDITTA

Oratorio di

Bronx, NY 10458

583 East 191st Street, Apt 2R

Academy of Sacred Drama