A series of five Blogs discussing the literary component of
the story of Judith found in the Apocrypha in light of composer
Alexander Serov’s own professed expectations for opera,
to determine what may be considered quintessentially
Russian about his first opera, Judith.
A Russian Judith? Literary Reflections on
Alexander Nikolayevich Serov’s First Opera
Part 2
The Book of Judith
A popular subject for both spoken and musical drama, Judith is the Jewish heroine of the apocryphal book of the Old Testament bearing her name. The inspiration for his own rendering of the Judith story came to Serov after attending a performance of the tragedy Guiditta written by Ivan Giustiniani and adapted for drama by Paolo Giacometti. Also aware of the dramatic setting of the Judith legend by Friedrich Hebbel, Serov strove to improve on these previous editions by deleting the excess baggage that cluttered those retellings. Giustiniani’s lovers and odalisques and Hebbel’s complex of psychological and metaphysical themes were considered superfluous to the biblical simplicity that Serov sought. 1
The sixteen-chapter Book of Judith falls into two clearly delineated sections. In the first section, chapters 1 to 7, Nebuchadnezzer, king of the Assyrians, wages war against Median King Arphaxad. The opposition of the inhabitants in the path of his destructive campaign infuriates Nebuchadnezzer, who eventually defeats, captures, and kills Arphaxad, then wreaks vengeance on the entire region. Holofernes, Nebuchadnezzer’s commander-in-chief, is placed in command of the combat forces with orders to show no mercy on those who resist the advancing troops.
Hearing of the death and destruction of neighboring towns by the Assyrian army, the Israelites fortify their towns and prepare for war, rousing Holofernes’ anger. Assembling all his subordinates, the commander-in-chief questions the guiding force behind the recalcitrant warriors’ behavior. Achior, leader of the Ammonites, relates a brief history of the Jewish people and their God. Achior’s advice to avoid conflict with the Jews, a prophetic statement vehemently protested by his colleagues, causes his expulsion from the Assyrian camp to the hill country where he is consigned to cast his lot with the doomed Israelite town of Bethulia.
The next day the army breaks camp and lays siege to Bethulia. The town’s residents, weakened both physically and emotionally by lack of water and loss of hope, and fearful of impeding death, abandon their resolve and beg their leaders to surrender. A compromise is effected. If God does not bring help within five days, the leaders will surrender the town to the enemy.
Judith finally is introduced in Chapter 8, and chapters 8 to 16 deal with her role in the saga of Bethulia and the imminent invasion. When Judith, a wealthy yet pious widow of great beauty, hears of the terms of surrender, she rebukes the town leaders and proposes her own scheme to save the town. Dressed in her finery and accompanied by her maid, Judith travels to the enemy camp, where she charms Holofernes and, when he falls into a drunken sleep, beheads him. Bearing the head of the slain commander-in-chief in a bag, Judith and her maid return to Bethulia, whose men consequently wage a successful campaign against the now panicked enemy troops. Judith then leads the inhabitants of the liberated town in a hymn to God. The book ends with a short epilogue recounting the remainder of Judith’s long life.
Biblical scholars have challenged the historical accuracy of the Judith story. For example, Nebuchadnezzer was king of the Babylonians, not the Assyrians, and the location of Bethulia is unknown. 2 Even the character of Judith cannot positively be identified. In spite of her impressive genealogy, perhaps included to confirm her Jewish lineage, the actuality of Judith has not been proven. 3 The prevailing tendency is to classify the narrative as historical fiction, as an edifying parable or folktale, or as a rescue story in which Judith symbolizes the Jewish people who overcame a formidable enemy through faith in God. 4 Characterized as a kind of allegorical passion play by Martin Luther, the story is apocryphal in the eschatological truths revealed in Judith’s triumph over the Anti-Christ Holofernes and the salvation of the Israelites. 5
The enduring value of the story of Judith lies not in its historical accuracy but in its masterly approach to narrative literature, namely in its pervasive use of dramatic irony. 6 Ironic drama is the fallen world of theology, a vision of complete realism that emphasizes content and lifelike representation over shape of the story. 7 Produced by incongruity between a situation developing in a drama and accompanying or preceding words or actions whose inappropriateness it reveals, dramatic irony is predicated on an understanding founded in a perception of truth. 8 By exposing the folly of those who overstep the proper bounds, irony postulates a meaningful, moral universe whose destiny involves restoration of broken morality. 9 The similarity of approach to the German romantic writers who begin with disharmony and attempt to find harmony cannot be ignored. 10
Continued in Part 3 The Irony of Judith
To read about the nurse character in Serov’s Judith, see Judith Barger, The Nurse in History and Opera: From Servant to Sister (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, May 2024).
Notes
- Delineated in Serov’s preface to Judith cited in Richard Taruskin, Opera and Drama as Preached and Practiced in the 1860s, Russian Music Studies No. 2 (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1981), 51–52.
- Carey A. Moore, The Anchor Bible: Judith, a New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985), 47, 79.
- Moore, Anchor Bible: Judith, 187. See also Frank C. Porter, “Judith, Book of,” in Dictionary of the Bible Dealing with Its Language, Literature and Contents Including the Bible Theology, ed. James Hastings, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: Clark, 1899), 823–34.
- See J. Edgar Bruns, “Judith,” in The New Catholic Encyclopedia, ed. William J. McDonald, vol. 8 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967), 43; J. Edgar Bruns, “Judith, Book of,” in The New Catholic Encyclopedia, ed. William J. McDonald, vol. 8, 45; and Moore, Anchor Bible: Judith, 71–74.
- Moore, Anchor Bible: Judith, 74. Eschatology is the branch of theology concerned with the final events in the history of the world and its people] or of humankind.
- Moore, Anchor Bible: Judith, 86. See also Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (New York: Atheneum, 1966), 162.
- Frye, Anatomy of Criticism, 140, 285.
- Edwin M. Good, Irony in the Old Testament (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1964), 31.
- Good, Irony in the Old Testament 17, 25.
- See, for example, Ernest J. Simmons, Introduction to Russian Realism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1965), 98.
