W. A. Mozart (1756-1791)
La Betulia liberata, K118/74c (1771)
Margot Oitzinger alto Giuditta
Christian Zenker tenor Ozia
Marelize Gerber soprano Amital
Markus Volpert baritone Achior
Ulrike Hofbauer soprano Cabri
Barbara Kraus soprano Carmi
L’Orfeo Barockorchester
Michi Gaigg
Challenge 2013
digital download, cover and booklet with full libretto, score
Mozart’s teenage music suffers only by comparison with his mature works. Here is music that would hardly shame a mature composer and it needs no gimmicks to make it attractive.
Betulia liberata, described as an azione sacra in due parti, is an oratorio composed by the 15-year-old composer to a text by Metastasio and based on the biblical Book of Judith. Leopold Mozart seems to have believed that it had been commissioned for performance in Padua, but the precise circumstances are unclear; in the event the Duke of Aragon appears to have preferred a setting of the same text by Mysliveček.
The story of Judith slaying Holofernes, general of the besieging Assyrian army, has inspired a large number of artistic productions, ranging from the Anglo-Saxon Abbot Ælfric via various renaissance paintings and Vivaldi - Juditha Triumphans - to Mozart and his contemporaries. The Metastasio libretto which Mozart set was particularly popular, despite the fact that it sticks rigidly to the Aristotelian unities, which means that the decapitation of Holofernes is only narrated.
Clearly any performance stands or falls by the quality of the principal character, Judith, and the nearest that I have to a benchmark comes in the form of Aria #8, Parto inerme (CD1 track 17), sung by Marie-Nicole Lemieux on a Naïve album of arias by Gluck, Haydn and Mozart. Here, as throughout, Michi Gaigg sets a fairly brisk tempo - brisker than Peter Schreier, too - but still gives Margot Oitzinger plenty of space to express her faith in God as she goes forth unarmed and unafraid. Oitzinger also has a lighter voice than Lemieux, who tends to sound ever so slightly plummy.
Where the Challenge disc gains, too, is in the use of period instruments; light and airy Le Violons du Roy may be on Naïve but, despite the archaic spelling, they use modern instruments. Much as I enjoyed the more studied account of this aria on Naïve, Oitzinger and Gaigg emerge as winners for me and this track leads on to a rousing finale of Part One.
There’s a Berlin Classics recording on which Edith Mathis sings Aminta’s Aria #11, Quel nocchier che in gran procella (CD2 track 4). Here, too, Michi Gaigg’s tempo is slightly faster than Bernhard Klee’s. Marelize Gerber may have a less famous name than that of Edith Mathis, but there’s little to choose between them and again I incline slightly towards the tempo on the new recording.
The other singers are also very good. In the stillness after the storm of the narration of the death of Holfernes, Christian Zenker’s rendition of Achior’s Aria #13, Te adoro (CD2 tr.8) strikes the right note before the exultant finale.
I’ve mentioned conductor Michi Gaigg en passant as setting fairly fast, dramatic tempi. It’s her guiding hand that ultimately makes this recording well worth considering. Terry Barfoot thought that her earlier recording of Mozart tenor arias with Christophe Prégardien was fresh and direct and had much to commend it . I not only happily second that, I’d also go up a notch or two and say that I can’t imagine a better presentation of this music. That said, the dramatic account of the overture from Concerto Köln on Capriccio - 3:40 against Gaigg’s by no means sedate 4:03 and Peter Schreier’s 3:56 - raises the intriguing possibility of an even more cogent account.
Not the most urgent choice for those who have yet to get to know Mozart’s mature masterpieces but all concerned here make this well worthwhile for confirmed Mozartians. (Musicweb review)