Debora e Jaele lldebrando Pizzetti's remarkable opera came joint third when Italian critics voted in 1956 for "20th-century operas which most deserve to survive the holocaust". It was placed level with Strauss's Salome, behind only Berg's Wozzeck and Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande. But this performance, given in 1995 at Vredenburg Music Centre in Utrecht. seems to be the only one since
Pizzetti's death in 1968. Starting work as the First World War raged in 1915, Pizzetti based his libretto on the Old Testament story of the war between the Israelites - inspired by the prophetess Deborah - and their oppressors, the Canaanites, led by Sisera. But his opera shifts the battleground from a straightforward struggle between good and evil to the conflict between love and duty - between human and divine love, even - with Jael, the Israelite who loves Sisera, at the heart of the story. And the Israelite people, torn first one way then the other, spring to life in Pizzetti's choral writing. with Marion van den Akker. Romain Bischoff. Henk van Heijnsbergen, Henk Vonk , Nicolas Mansfield , Nanco de Vries, Wemer van
Mechelen, Julian Hartmann and Frans Fiselier
Leipzig Opera Chorus, Netherlands Radio Choir and Symphony
Orchestra, conductor Gabriel Chmura
SOUNDING THE CENTURY