Frano Parać’s 80-minute opera, a biblical epic, based on Marko Marulić’s 1521 epic poem Judita, premièred in Zagreb in 2000 not long after the end and victory of the Croatian War of Independence against Serbia. So, it is easy to see why this fictional revolutionary Jewish drama has proved so very popular with Croatians.
The 2024 revival, directed by Snježana Banović and conducted by Ivan Josip Skender, was timed to echo the 500th anniversary of the death of Marulić, the national poet and father of Croatian literature.
Judita, the first literary epic in Croatian language, published in 1521 and based on the Book of Judith, gives an account of a Jewish widow, famed for her beauty, charm and wit, who saved the helpless Jewish people of Bethulia from the tyranny of the invading Assyrians by killing their general, Holofernes.
Judith is a symbol of courage, justice and purity, facing up to the idea of murder. Sofija Petrović, constantly changing her costume, looks like she is in a different era to everybody else. She is more of a symbol than a seductive woman.
The large chorus, who do look like people who have been under siege for 34 days and have five days left to choose between surrender and death by thirst, have a greater impact. They are a monumental image of solemnity and grief.
Parać’s music and the choral singing in the first and last scene have a strong emotional effect. Unfortunately, the scenes in between are badly directed and acted.
The scenes with Holofernes, played out on a large dining table, are comically sexually unconvincing. Matija Meić’s general is a burly buffoon. Judith, sword in hand, looks up and down his drunken sleeping body as if unable to make up her mind what bit to chop off.
Audiences expecting a sensational, gruesome and erotic finale in the vulgar manner of the Wilde Strauss opera Salome will be very disappointed. The severed head, which Judith takes home as a trophy, is never seen.
Croatian National Theatre’s Judith can be watched free on the OperaVision channel.