ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
Shortly after his first journey to Italy, Mozart wrote the music for Betulia liberata, setting a popular libretto by Pietro Metastasio. The Viennese court poet followed the Biblical original rather closely: during the siege of her hometown Bethulia by the army of Nebuchadnezzar, under the command of Holofernes, the widow Judith enters the enemy camp, wins Holofernes’ trust and beheads the sleeping commander. The attackers flee in confusion.