MUSICOLOGICA BRUNENSIA 49, 2014, 1 ANNA RYSZKA-KOMARNICKA ARCANGELO SPAGNA’S “PERFETTO MELODRAMMA SPIRITUALE” AS SEEN ON THE EXAMPLE OF TWO VERSIONS OF HIS ORATORIO BASED ON THE BOOK OF JUDITH* Arcangelo Spagna (1632–1726) is one of the best known fgures in the history of Baroque Italian oratorios, a status owed mostly to his short but celebrated trea- tise Discorso [dogmatico] intorno a gl’Oratorii. As the only instance of extended theoretical refection on this important literary and musical genre, the Discorso has attracted considerable critical attention. 1 Spagna published his work in 1706 in Rome together with volume 1 of Oratorii overo melodrammi sacri, a collection of his 12 oratorios. The third oratorio in that collection, L’Amazone hebrea nelle glorie di Giuditta, 2 deals with a subject taken from the Book of Judith, a common source of plots in 17th- and 18th-century Italian oratorios and a cultural phenom- enon being currently researched by us as part of a broader project. 3 In the course of our research a different version of this libretto has been uncovered, published anonymously (music and text) under a different title: * This article has been written as part of a research project entitled The Book of Judith in Italian Baroque Oratorios (1621–ca1750) (2011/01/B/HS2/04723) fnanced by National Science Centre in Kraków, Poland. 1 Recent literature includes, among others, SMITHER, Howard E. The Oratorio in the Ba- roque Era. Italy – Vienna – Paris. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1977, p. 294–300; ZANETTI, Roberto. La Musica Italiana nel Settecento, vol. 2. Torino: Bramante Editrice, 1978, p. 667–672; HERCZOG, Johann. Il perfetto melodramma spirituale. L’orato- rio italiano nel suo periodo classico. Rome: IBIMUS, 2013, p. 78–87. 2 SPAGNA, Arcangelo. Oratorii overo melodrammi sacri con un discorso dogmatico intorno l’istessa materia, facs. ed. by Johann Herczog. Lucca: Libreria Musicale Italiana, 1993 (Mu- surgiana, 25) [Libro primo], p. 55–70. 3 In 1621–1734, 9 drammi per musica and 54 different oratorios and Italian dialogues (both in lingua volgare and in Latin) based on the Book of Judith have been identifed. Some were used more than once (and some even repeatedly) for various performances and editions. In 1734–1764, i.e. in the period which felt the early impact of Metastasio’s famous oratorio La Betulia liberata, at least 7 new libretti were written, followed by almost 20 years in which we fnd nothing but the reception of Metastasio’s work. New treatments of Judith’s story in the Italian oratorio repertoire did not begin to appear until after 1780, when Metastasio’s model of the opera and oratorio libretto was going slowly out of fashion. DOI: 10.5817/MB2014-1-6