HOME | BIOGRAPHY | COMPOSITIONS | SELECTED ESSAYS | BIBLIOGRAPHY | RELATED SITES

K. 118/74c

La Betulia liberata

The Liberation of Bethulia

An azione sacra in two parts

La Betulia liberata is the only real oratorio that Mozart ever composed. Unfortunately, its history is somewhat obscure. The autograph score attests to the work's authenticity, but beyond that we have little documentary evidence concerning its composition or performance.

The work's commission is mentioned almost as an afterthought in one of Leopold's letters home during his and his son's first tour of Italy. In March, 1771, they had stopped briefly in Padua. "We spent the 13th in Padua and stayed in the Palazzo of the nobleman Pesaro," Leopold wrote. "We saw as much of Padua as can be seen in a day, as there too we were not left in peace and Wolfgang had to play at two houses. Moreover he has received a commission to compose an oratorio for Padua, which he can do at his leisure."

The request had come from Don Giuseppe Ximena of Padua, Prince of Aragon, a rather old-fashioned fellow who had little taste for modern music. (He called it Tamburate -- drum-beating.) The oratorio, drawn from the works of Viennese court poet Pietro Metastasio, was to be performed in Padua the following Lent. The religious theme of La Betulia liberata, based on the apocryphal Book of Judith, was eminently suitable for a Lenten performance. No doubt Mozart was familiar with it; the previous year, Count Karl Joseph Firmian, Governor-General of Lombardy, had given him a complete edition of Metastasio's works.

Mozart apparently was in no rush to write the music. In July, well after their return to Salzburg, Leopold wrote to Field-Marshal Pallavicini of Bologna that "my son is composing an oratorio of Metastasio for Padua," and he planned to accommodate the commission during their next trip to Italy. "I shall send this oratorio, when we pass through Verona, to be copied in Padua, and later return from Milan to Padua to hear the rehearsal."

But the centerpiece of the second Italian tour was to be something much bigger: an opera seria titled Ascanio in Alba (K. 111), which would premiere in Milan on October 17.

Whether the oratorio was sent ahead is not known; at any rate, Mozart and his father never made it to Padua as they returned home from Milan in December. And though La Betulia liberata was performed in Padua the following Lent, the libretto names as composer the local musician Giuseppe Callegari. Did the Prince find Mozart's composition too newfangled and not to his taste? Or, more likely, did Mozart not finish the commission in time? There is no evidence either way. A plan to rework the oratorio for a 1786 performance in Vienna (an idea that William Mann finds "curious and impractical") seems to have gone nowhere. Chances are, Mozart's La Betulia liberata was never performed during his lifetime.

Dramatis personae:

• Ozia (Ozias), governor of Bethulia (tenor)
• Guiditta (Judith), widow of Manasses (alto)
• Amital, a noble Israelite woman (soprano)
• Achior, prince of the Ammonites (bass)
• Cabri (Chabris), son of Gothomiel (soprano)
• Carmi (Charmis), son of Melchiel (soprano)
• Bethulians (chorus)

Synopsis:

The setting is the city of Bethulia.

Part I

	Overture
	La Betulia liberata
	© 1986 A. Charlin
	AMS 2627/8-2

Before the action begins, the Israelites have taken refuge in the mountain stronghold of Bethulia to resist a siege by an Assyrian host. In order to gather intelligence about his enemy, Holofernes, commander of the Assyrians, questions Achior, who is familiar with the Israelites. Achior tells him: The Israelites cannot be defeated as long as they remain faithful to their god. Holofernes, who will accept no god but Nebuchadnezzar, orders that Achior be banished to Bethulia.

Inside Bethulia, Ozias faces mutiny. Amital, Chabris and Charmis point out the terrible effects of the siege on the populace and question his leadership. It would be better, they say, to surrender to the Assyrians than to resist any longer. Ozias begs for five more days; surely, God will save them.

Judith, who overhears this, interrupts her mourning for Manasses to upbraid both Ozias and the inhabitants of Bethulia: "You are all equally guilty. The people went to one extreme; and he that rules them went ruinously to the other. The one despairs of divine mercy; the other dares to define its limits." Ozias and Chabris admit their error. Judith tells them that she herself has thought of a daring plan to end the siege; they must meet her at the gate that evening.

At the gate, Ozias is surprised to find Judith lavishly dressed, perfumed and arrayed with jewels. She announces that she is leaving the city attended only by her female servant. Ozias is horrified at what might happen, but decides to trust Judith and bids her farewell.

Part II

Though they are starving to death, Ozias and Achior somehow find the energy to engage in an extended theological discussion. Achior cannot understand why Ozias and the Israelites are content to believe in only one god; Ozias counters that a god can be perfect only if he is unique. Amital enters, still worried about morale in Bethulia. They are interrupted by a great commotion at the gate: Judith has returned.

	Lodi al gran Dio
	La Betulia liberata
	© 1986 A. Charlin
	AMS 2627/8-2

Judith explains that, during the night, she made her way into the Assyrian camp and was accepted into Holofernes' tent. There, she waited while her host ate and drank himself into a stupor. Then she used his own sword cut off his head with two blows. She spares not a single gruesome detail: "The severed trunk writhed on the blood-covered floor; I felt the half-alive head shiver beneath the hand which supported it." To prove her story, she suddenly pulls the severed head from a bag carried by her servant. Achior recognizes it instantly and falls to the ground, but soon recovers and repents of his polytheistic ways. Everything comes to an end as the people of Bethulia sing a chorus of praise to their god.

Recommended recordings:

• W.A. Mozart: La Betulia liberata, A. Charlin AMS 2627/8-2
• Mozart: Oratorios; Cantatas; Masonic Music, Philips 422522-2

References:

• Anderson, Emily, ed. The Letters of Mozart and His Family. New York, 1985.
• Giegling, Weinmann and Sievers, eds. Chronologisch-thematisches Verzeichnis samtlicher Tonwerke Wolfgang Amadé Mozarts, 6th edition. Wiesbaden, 1964.
• Mann, William. The Operas of Mozart. New York, 1977.
• Zaslaw, Neal, and Cowdery, William, eds. The Compleat Mozart. New York, 1990.