A series of blogs identifying five general categories of the nurse character’s role in operas from the mid-seventeenth through the early twenty-first century. The categories are fluid and overlap, so that the nurse character can and usually does appear in more than one category within an opera. Taken from a careful study of librettos and available performances of a hundred-plus operas with at least one nurse character.
Former Nurses: Avra
Judith by Alexander Serov, Libretto by Ivan Antonovich Giustiani and Others
Premiered in Saint Petersburg, 1863
Judith, a beautiful young Hebrew widow, lives in the biblical town of Bethulia that the Assyrian army has under siege for refusing to worship King Nebuchadnezzer. When the starving, dehydrated residents no longer can resist, the town elders agree to surrender the town after five more days if help does not arrive. Judith rejects this idea and, with her trusted nurse Avra at her side, walks to the enemy Assyrian camp and charms its commander General Holofernes. When the drunken soldier has dismissed his aides and is alone in his tent with Judith, whom he hopes to seduce, she decapitates the sleeping Holofernes and places his head in the food bag that Avra has brought on their journey. Avra carries the ‘spoils of victory’ back to Bethulia, which is liberated soon thereafter.
PART 1
If their functions in the household are the determining factor, around half of opera’s known nurse characters could be classified as Former Nurses. No longer responsible for an infant or a child, but still useful to the household as the young mistress or master grows into adulthood, the nurse takes on a new non-nurse designation and new responsibilities within the family constellation.
In ancient Greek society, age conferred authority for women as well as for men, but only after the woman had ceased to be a source of anxiety for the men in a household. Once past childbearing and no longer sexualized in men’s eyes, women “gained a degree of autonomy, assuming advisory and supervisory roles at home and freedom to move about unchaperoned in public.” 1 Young wo men, however, were not given that freedom and were thought in great need of constant supervision to protect their virtue. In Greek tragedy, nurses were portrayed favorably as “shrewd and knowledgeable, loyal defenders of the house, confidantes and advisors of wives and children, dependable runners of errands.” 2 As doorkeepers or gatekeepers, nurses protected women from intrusion of strange men into the household: “The doorway, as boundary between inside and outside realms, was a dangerous place for maidens and young wives to be,” though in some cases the doorkeeper could and did invite someone inside. 3
But scholars’ focus on older nurses in comic roles tells only part of the story; opera’s nurses are cast in more serious roles as well. Having been brought into the home when much younger to nurture an infant or small child, once the child was weaned, the nurse’s role evolved to meet the needs of the growing mistress or master. The former wet nurse now acting as chaperone, companion, and guardian of reputation and safety for her mistress – the function most often associated with opera’s nurse characters – is exemplified in the apocryphal story of Judith, which Serov brought to the opera stage.
The biblical tale pits good against evil in the characters of Judith and Holofernes, respectively. Morality is emphasized in the victory of the besieged Israelites over their Assyrian oppressors. Contradictions are evident in the actions of the story’s two main characters. Holofernes, the powerful, seasoned commander who heads over 130,000 warriors, literally loses his head to an ultra-devout Jewish woman who lives a life of constant prayer and fasting. Yet, clever and ruthless in her scheming, Judith seemingly has no qualms about murdering for the sake of her people.
That the libretto for Serov’s Yudif follows the biblical account as closely as it does is surprising given the number of people involved in its construction. Although Serov originally had conceived Yudif as an Italian opera, he settled on a Russian opera when Emma La Grua, the Italian prima donna whom he hoped to favor with the role of Judith, dismissed the work. 4 Zvantsev translated Ivan Giustiniani’s original Italian libretto for Giuditta into Russian but left the libretto unfinished. When Serov’s plan to write his own libretto in Wagnerian fashion fell short of completion, he employed the services of Dmitry Lobanov and Apollon Maykov, whom Edward Garden dubs “a number of hacks and one genuine poet,” as versifiers. 5 The finished product was a libretto whose text followed the Judith narrative as found in the Apocrypha, but with some changes, the significance of which becomes apparent on closer examination.
Judith is a popular subject for both spoken and musical dramas, not all of which adhere to the apocryphal version of the story. Yet the authenticity of that version is a moot point. Biblical scholars have challenged the historical account of the Judith story. For example, Nebuchadnezzer was king of the Babylonians, not of the Assyrians, and the location of Bethulia is unknown. 6 Even the character of Judith cannot be identified positively. The enduring value of the Judith story lies not in its historical accuracy but in its masterly approach to narrative literature, namely in its pervasive use of dramatic irony. 7 By exposing the folly of those who overstep the proper bounds, dramatic irony postulates a meaningful, moral universe whose destiny involves restoration of broken morality – a lens through which Edward Savage views L’incoronazione di Poppea in its depiction of disastrous consequences resulting from dishonorable conduct rooted in force and passion. 8
Sidnie White suggests that the story of Jael and Deborah served as the model for the Judith story in the Apocrypha. 9 Not in the Book of Judith, the story of Deborah and Jael is found in the Old Testament Book of Judges, chapters 4 and 5. The Israelites cry out to the Lord for help after Canaanite King Jabin has conquered and ruled them with cruelty and violence for twenty years. Deborah, a prophetess and judge in Israel, tells Barak, a judge, leader, and soldier of God’s command, to engage Sisera, King Jabin’s military commander, in combat on Mount Tabor. She forewarns Barak that credit for the victory will go to a woman. Sisera flees the battle scene and seeks refuge in the tent of Jael, who, after offering him sanctuary, drives a tent peg through his skull.
An important difference in Serov’s rendition of the Judith story from that of the Apocrypha and of Friedrich Hebbel’s 1840 Judith and Paolo Giacometti’s 1860 Giuditta dramas is his inclusion of the nurse Avra rather than the silent maid of the Apocrypha, the maid Mirza in Hebbel’s maid Mirza, and Giacometti’s maid servants Abramie and Dinah. An understanding of how Serov modified the biblical story for his opera offers the setting in which to appreciate nurse Avra’s role.
The sixteen-chapter Book of Judith in the Apocrypha offers high drama, intrigue, suspense, and sexual innuendo, as well as a moral lesson. The heroine and her maid are not introduced until the last half of the Book once the backstory has set the context for Judith’s heroic deed. The silent maid appears in thirteen verses: as messenger (8:10); as Judith’s companion, chaperone, and protector (8:33, 10:6–7, 17; 13:10); to assist Judith with dressing and meals (10:2, 5; 12:15, 19); on stand-by during the beheading (13:3, 9–10); and when Judith rewards the maid with her freedom (16:33).
Serov dispensed with the lengthy introductory material about Nebuchadnezzer’s escalating battle campaign found in chapters 1 through 6 in the Book of Judith and began the opera at the crucial point of high action in Chapter 7 of the apocryphal account, in the besieged town of Bethulia, whose anguished residents are begging their leaders to surrender the town to the enemy rather than continue their hopeless suffering. To emphasize the fundamental moral element of the situation so integral to Russian realism, Serov added the character Eliachim, a high priest who in a cameo appearance relates the Exodus story and prophesies that glory will be restored to those who put their faith in God. Achior, leader of the Ammonites and Holofernes’ subordinate, whose apocryphal prediction of doom for the Assyrians gets him expelled from the Assyrian camp to cast his lot with the beleaguered residents of Bethulia, takes on a more active role in the opera, relating to the town leaders how he tried to dissuade the Assyrian attack on their town. Achior’s monologue serves as an important link between the two parts of the Book of Judith by supplying background information found in chapters 1 to 6.
Judith, a prominent citizen who has kept the town fed from her flocks, is introduced in Act 2. The heroine’s objective background so carefully explicated in the Apocrypha is deleted in favor of Judith’s opening monologue. Referring only to “My poor Manasseh,” her deceased husband, Judith’s remembrance of him provides a glimpse of the multifaceted personality of this female Moses who will save her people from continued enemy oppression. 10 Judith’s admission of doubt about the mission she proposes to undertake offers the only hint of human vulnerability in an otherwise staunchly resolute woman. In the monologue, Judith also shares with operagoers her as yet undisclosed plan that with God’s help she soon will execute, but she omits the graphic details.
Centered in C minor, the key that Serov has assigned to his heroine throughout the opera, the musical style of Judith’s monologue is as varied as the many thoughts running through her head. 11 Cantabile memories of her deceased husband and nostalgia for the past give way to an emphatic, almost martial rhythmic allegro when considering the enemy and the mission that she feels called by God to undertake. Her determination to accept that exploit on behalf of her late husband is sealed on a high G#.
Fleeting doubts concerning possible shame and captivity are voiced in a more agitated style against a tremolo accompaniment. But with dignified energy, Judith reasons that her beauty was not given to her in vain but to be “my sword, and the salvation of Israel.” 12 Thoughts of how she will adorn herself to capture Holofernes’ attention and lull the general to sleep with the spell of her songs merit a return to cantabile singing, now in her upper vocal register. Singing in a stately manner over a grandiose accompaniment, but now more forcefully and free of doubt, Judith renews her resolution to save her people and return victorious. She ends her monologue certain of the Lord’s blessing, with an ethereal passage that evokes the fluttering wings of the angels he will send to protect her. The remainder of Act 2 introduces Avra, whose pivotal role in the opera has expanded beyond her counterpart in the Apocrypha. Judith’s maidservant, who is mute in the biblical story, acquires both a name and a voice as the old nurse in Serov’s opera. Her name may have come from the reference to Judith and her maid “et abra sua’ – thus Abra – in the Latin Vulgate or perhaps from Ava, Judith’s servant girl in the twelfth-century German poem “Die Jüngere Judith.” 13
Avra’s singing that follows the monologue, in the nurse’s assigned key of F minor for the opera, returns Judith from the realm of angels to their dire situation on the ground – the village’s water supply has run out, and Bethulia’s residents are in danger of dehydration and death. 14 Avra’s mezzo-soprano voice in lower tessitura contrasts with Judith’s higher soprano range. At Judith’s request, Avra has called the village Elders to discuss the situation, but she questions what Judith can do to help, because “You are not Deborah or Jael” – this last statement accented to make her point.
“Jael,” Judith reflects to her nurse. “The people sing her story. Sing it to me, I want to hear it again.” Avra’s song about Jael, which Judith apparently has heard on more than one occasion, prefigures the strategy by which Judith’s hand will deliver Israel in yet another decisive military encounter. In a lengthy, repetitive modified strophic aria, a set piece characteristic of opera’s stock characters, the nurse retells the story that she herself probably had heard when growing up: “Oh, Jael, no one will forget your deed. You saved your country. You smote a nail into the skull of the cruel enemy and Sisera fell down lifeless at your feet. And triumphant Israel reduced the army of the adversaries to dust upon the battlefield. God fought for His people!”
Avra’s musical rendition is strong and spirited like the deed of Jael whom she is chronicling; the score is marked war song of the Jews or Hebrews. From her opening phrase sung in unison with an orchestral accompaniment in octaves, Avra retells the story of the Jewish heroine in a powerful accented melodic line of ascents and descents, both angular and stepwise. When driving her point home about the victory, Avra’s melody peaks over harmonic accompaniment in the tonic E major, which Taruskin identifies as the key of the Hebrews. 14 The repeated note patterns and steady allegro rhythm in cut time bring to mind the stomping of foot soldiers on their way to battle. The piece culminates in a brief jubilant duet in which nurse and mistress join their voices in rapture that “God fought for His people!”
When the Elders arrive, in an interesting departure from the biblical text, Serov gives the high priest Ozias, whom Judith has rebuked for his lack of faith, the words “Judith, the Creator has given you the wisdom of a man and your word is true before God” (italics mine). The comment sheds light not so much on Israelite culture of the time as on nineteenth-century Russian views of women, for whom wisdom was not an accepted trait. Judith’s superiority to the male leaders of Bethulia who, under pressure, compromise their values by capitulating to terms of surrender that the town’s weary residents demand, cannot be reconciled easily. If Fyodor Dostoevsky’s description of Tatyana in Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin as embodying “positive beauty; she is the apotheosis of the Russian woman” is applied to Judith, it is beauty, not brains that should augment Judith’s positive attitude and resolute spirit. 15 Thus Serov’s inclusion of the remark uncovers yet another contradiction: a woman who is beautiful and wise plans to use both attributes to her advantage against the enemy.
Judith ends her conversation with the Elders with her request for permission to go with Avra to the enemy camp that night. Avra is caught off guard and cannot believe her ears. Alone again with Avra, as Judith talks of her ordained mission executed under the care of God’s angels, Avra’s is the voice of reason, Judith’s, the voice of a visionary. In an evenly matched dialogue over an accompaniment that imparts urgency to their conversation through use of repeated eighth notes in a predominately stepwise pattern in cut time duple motion, the two women air their differing points of view. One almost can picture the restless, anxious nurse pacing back and forth as Judith’s scheme registers. Avra, who needs to know more, cuts to the chase: “Judith, I implore you, tell me what your plan is. What will you do? Going into that godless and debauched camp? Your beauty will be your downfall.”
A comprehensive list of the hundred-plus operas that include a nurse character is found on my website under BOOKS > The Nurse in History and Opera > Book Extras.
To learn more about how the nurse is portrayed on the opera stage, see Judith Barger, The Nurse in History and Opera: From Servant to Sister (Lexington Books, 2024).
Notes
- Henderson, “Women in Attic Old Comedy,” 108, 109.
- Henderson, “Women in Attic Old Comedy, 123.
- Henderson, “Women in Attic Old Comedy, 125.
- See Rutger Helmers, Not Russian Enough? Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism in Nineteenth-Century Russian Opera (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2014), 53.
- Edward Garden, “Serov, Alexander Nkiolayevich,”, in New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie, vol. 18 (London: Macmillan, 1980), 179.
- Carey A. Moore, Judith, a New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible, vol. 40 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985), 47, 79.
- Moore, Judith, 86. See also Frye, Anatomy of Criticism, 162.
- Edwin M. Good, Irony in the Old Testament (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1964), 17, 25; Savage, “Love and Infamy,” 206.
- Sidnie A. White, ‘In the Steps of Jael and Deborah: Judith as Heroine’, in ‘No One Spoke Ill of Her’: Essays on Judith, ed. James C. VanderKam (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1992), 5.
- For the connection between Judith and the Exodus story, see Patrick W. Skehan, “The Hand of Judith,” Catholic Bible Quarterly 25 (1963): 94–110.
- Taruskin, Opera and Drama in Russia, 61.
- Alexander Serov, Judith, Soloists and Orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre, cond. Andrey Tchistiakov (1991 Le Chant du Monde CD libretto). Unless otherwise indicated, lyrics from the opera are taken from this libretto.
- Elena Ciletti and Henrike Lähnemann, “Judith and the Christian Tradition,” in The Sword of Judith: Judith Studies Across the Discipline, ed. Kevin P. Brine, Elena Ciletti, and Henrike Lahnemann, (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2010), 41–65.
- Taruskin, Opera and Drama in Russia, 61.
- Fyodor Dostoevsky, “Pushkin,” in Russian Views of Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, trans. Sona S. Hoisington (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), 59.
