Betulia liberata
Pietro Metastasio, 1698–1782
Betulia liberata (The Liberation of Betulia)
Amsterdam, 1792
David Franco-Mendes (1713–1792), also known as David Hofshi, was a Dutch Hebrew poet of Portuguese Sephardic origin and one of the earliest literary figures in the emerging Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment, movement in Holland. His Teshuat Yisrael bi-yede Yehudit (Salvation of Israel by Judith), a Hebrew adaptation of the oratorio libretto Betulia liberata by the famous Italian poet Pietro Metastasio, demonstrates how open assimilated Dutch Jews were to seeing Jewish stories interpreted through the literary and musical trends and themes of their time. This rare manuscript of David Franco-Mendes’s adaptation, which appeared in Amsterdam in 1792, also documents the Enlightenment’s general interest in women as heroes. The poem recounts the biblical story of Judith, a widow who rescues Israelites from the Assyrians’ siege of the fortress of Betulia by seducing and beheading their general, Holofernes.
Metastasio’s libretto enjoyed enormous popularity and was set to music by 30 composers. The most notable was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791), who created an opera oratorio also called La Betulia liberata in 1771, when he was just 15 years old.
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