'Just War' According to Dialogos

The staged musical production of ‘Judith’ by Katarina Livljanić and members of the ensemble Dialogos tells the biblical tale of the beautiful enchantress, Judith, who seduces and then beheads the Assyrian general Holofernes to liberate the Hebrews. The score also includes a medieval 5-string fiddle, a lirica (Croatian traditional stringed instrument, tuned in ‘archaic’ manner), and archaic flutes. The beauty and Croatian authenticity of Livljanić’s voice, the narrative and discursive power of the instrumental parts, the elegance of the staging and lighting, and the poetics of the carefully devised, historically informed Glagolitic text (and translation that is sympathetic to the needs of the audience, as opposed to Livljanić’s fellow scholars)—all of these combine to achieve a compelling artistic result, just as with ‘Vision of Tondal’ and other of Dialogos’s productions.

Character development in Livljanić’s version of ‘Judith’ is fuller than in the simplified accounts of the story that are familiar to us, and far more complex than in the synoptic artworks through which most of us are acquainted with it ... Klimt and Caravaggio and Reubens and so many others.

Holofernes, the general of the Babylonian King Nebuchadrezzar, whose decapitation by Judith is referenced in the Old Testament. Holofernes, the powerful general of King Nebuchadnezzar’s army. A number of provinces of the Second Jewish Commonwealth had withheld their assistance from Nebuchadnezzar and his government—had declined to join the coalition of the willing. So now comes Holofernes, the guy Nebuchadnezzar dispatches to give them an offer they couldn’t refuse.

The historical general did lay siege to Bethulia. The city was on the verge of surrendering but was saved by Judith, a beautiful Hebrew widow who preyed upon Holofernes’s huge vanity, deceived him, drank him under the table, sliced off his head in bed. Judith, she who then returned to Bethulia displaying the severed head, after which the Hebrews went on to beat Nebuchadnezzar’s now-generalless army. Morals: Be careful who you drink with, and be sure to drink responsibly. (more)