Featured Manuscript: La Giuditta

Curator's Note:

When Lino Bianchi researched and published his "definitive" study of Alessandro Scarlatti in the 1950s, he had no idea whatsoever that the first version of Scarlatti’s masterpiece La Giuditta from 1693 was sitting in a vault at the Morristown National Historical Park in New Jersey. He was not alone; who on earth would even think to look for Scarlatti at a National Park when the subsequent versions of Giuditta resided at Cambridge University and the Biblioteca del Conservatorio S. Pietro a Mariella in Naples? Indeed.

In 2008, Maestro Robert Butts edited, produced, and conducted the oratorio, and the Baroque Orchestra of New Jersey premiered the first live performance of this first edition in over 300 years, at the College of Saint Elizabeth.

Photographs by Morristown NHP volunteer Steve Newfield.


This manuscript is featured on the cover of the September/October issue of Archival Outlook. {read more here}