ESTER LIBERATRICE

Salvo Vitale and Jessica Gould

(photo by Harold Levine)

March 8, 2026 by Guest Reviewer Joan Greenberg

Ester Liberatrice Del Popolo Ebreo

An Oratorio composed  by Italian Composer Alessandro Stradella, with a libretto by Lelio Orsini (1673)

Let us not bury the lead.  Salon Sanctuary Concerts delivered!

Founded in 2009, its stated mission is to  “present special projects that view history through the prism of music which endeavor to encourage understanding among people of different faiths through the performance of sacred repertoire in houses of worship open to all.”

The world needs more Esters and more wonderful concerts like the one delivered last Sunday at the Museum at Eldridge Street located on the lower East Side of New York City. The audience included adults and children and the sanctuary level was filled to capacity.

The musicians and singers were all stellar…. Not only the principals, but the chorus as well with strong harmonies and effective presentation. We believed that they were all distraught townspeople terrified of looming genocide.

It was a lovely surprise that Stradella’s  treatment of an oft told Purim story felt new and inviting, even though the composition created and the libretto written in the 17th Century.

Presumably because the venue did not have the ability to project supertitles above or adjacent to the stage [or display  “Met Titles” on the back of audience seats]  English translation sheets of the lyrics were available to audience members who were not fluent in Italian. We indeed found the translations by Martin Morell and Jessica Gould extremely  helpful.

Even the building came through.  The acoustics were  music friendly with not a hint of synthetic reverberation or amplification in the air, and the human and non-human musical instruments blended and enhanced each other.  

It should be noted that the museum is housed in the historic Eldridge Street Synagogue, built circa 1887. The building is one of the oldest (if not the oldest) synagogues in the United States. After twenty years and approximately twenty million dollars, it was beautifully restored, to be a religious sanctuary (as opposed to a theatre or an opera house).   We mention this to point out two unique viewing factors:   (i) the musicians (and their beautiful Baroque instruments) were staged front and center at eye level with the audience and immediately below the pulpit; and (ii) except for the balcony and center aisle seats, there were some viewing challenges.  On the other hand, the limited performance space resulted in some creative staging in that heretofore mentioned center aisle, to which some had much better views than others. So, that could be something to try to improve on in the future.

It was a lovely surprise that Stradella treatment of an oft told Purim story felt new and inviting, even though composition created and the libretto written in the 17^th Century.

Whilst the concert clearly felt collaborative, some performers had more screen time, so to speak, which we would like to highlight.

Jessica Gould’s Ester,  through her intensity of voice and emotional actions, brought us along on Ester’s journey from fear, to responsibility, and most critical to her ultimate actions, bravery.  There was something electric watching and hearing her go from frightened to formidable.

We have been fortunate to have experienced the vocal clarity and range  of Mezzo-Soprano Kinneret Ely before. Consistent with her past performances Ms. Ely’s commitment to  character was front and center.  Therefore, we should not have been surprised  with her ability to make us believe, that she was Mardocheo, a prominent male figure in the biblical Book of Ester and capable of thwarting Haman’s evil plot. The character is pivotal in motivating Ester to take the action that makes the story of Ester inspiring….. and (coincidentally?) appropriate during International Women’s Month.

Sonia Tedla  as Speranza Celeste with her agile soprano did indeed give the townspeople heavenly hope.

Paul Max Tipton  as Haman had a thankless role. From the outset one wants to hate him despite his dignified bass-baritone. 

Salvo Vitale  as Assuero, with his deep bass and general appeal made the relationship with Ester somewhat exciting.

We looked forward to Mathew Curran’s  Testo,  perhaps because his beautiful bass nicely summed up the events which just transpired, particularly in Act I.

We will end as we began.   Salon Sanctuary Concerts’ presentation of  Ester Liberatrice Del Popolo Ebreo delivered!

Principals:

*Jessica Gould (Soprano)as Ester [Queen Esther]

Sonia Tedla (Soprano) as Speranza Celeste [Heavenly Hope]

Kinneret Ely (Mezzo-Soprano)as Mardocheo [ Modechai]

Paul Max Tipton (Bass-Baritone)  as Aman [Haman]

Salvo Vitale (Bass) as Assuero   [King Ahasuerus]

Mathew Curran (Bass) as Testo  [Narator]

Chorus:

Elisse Albian

Christina Kay

Dominic Inferrera

Musicians:

Members of the  Camerata Grimani

Ian Jones and Kiyoun Jang on Violin;

Andrea Damiani on Theorbo

Adam Young on Viola da Gamba

Cameron Khan on Harpsichord

© meche kroop

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A PERSIAN COURT ON GRAMERCY PARK

Stradella's "Ester Liberatrice del Popolo Ebreo" --Salon/Sanctuary Concerts (photo by Stephen de las Heras)

Guest review by Chris Petitt:

Alessandro Stradella, a Caravaggio-esque figure and notorious bad boy who died young-ish at the hands of a romantic rival, knew a thing or two about how to set a text and wake up an audience to the dramatic potential in many a sacred story. He thrived in the 17th-century and is now enjoying somewhat of a Renaissance, with New York performances by Opera Lafayette, the Academy of Sacred Drama, and Salon/Sanctuary Concerts, the Americans joining a veritable Stradella-mania among a panoply of Italian baroque groups.

 Lucky for us that we can now hear so much of his wonderful music, oratorios dramatizing bible stories and lives of other sacred characters, in which the challenges for the performer include virtuoso singing, nuanced acting, and musical chops which enable one to traverse compositional adventures that at times appear to defy logic.

On Wednesday, Salon/Sanctuary Concerts, an intrepid organization never wont to shy away from either an ambitious or adventurous program, offered up the 1673 work Ester Liberatrice del Popolo Ebreo, a setting of the story of the Jewish holiday Purim, in which Queen Ester of the Persian Empire uses intelligence, persuasion and reason to head off the genocidal plot of Hamman (Aman in the Italian version) to eradicate the Jewish people. The mid-19th-century Brotherhood Synagogue provided an ideal setting, its central bima creating a ready made stage set for the drama.

 The choice of this work is timely, and not just because are we headed into the Purim holiday which celebrates Ester’s victory. A story about a clever woman who outsmarts an oppressive bully whose overcompensation issues result in the suffering of a whole ethnic group resonates all too keenly with most Americans today. But before we make any glib Nancy Pelosi/Donald Trump references, let us remember that Ester was a heroine because, unlike bold modern women today, she was constrained to function within the narrow confines of what was a woman’s place, in both the original story’s setting of the Persian empire and the Counter-Reformation Rome of the libretto.

Far from demanding her people’s emancipation, she has to skirt the issue, finding ways to impress her point upon her husband the King without winding up like her predecessor Vashti, imprisoned in a harem for refusing to obey his command (which involved appearing naked at a banquet, but I digress).

This limited space of action creates a compelling character, to say nothing of the music, and soprano Jessica Gould, who is also the Artistic Director of Salon/Sanctuary Concerts and the engine behind this fine organization’s compelling programming, navigated the role skillfully. Showing a clear transition from Ester’s anxiety to certitude under the nudging of her cousin Mardocheo, sung with beautiful, unaffected tone and clear intention by countertenor José Lemos, Gould’s powerful voice embraces both coloratura filigree and weighty lyrical passages with ease, while a dramatic fire, fine Italian diction, and command of the text makes this role her own.

Gould’s is a dramatic instrument with an impressive facility and distinctive color, dark and rich in the depths and brilliant above. She may not match a certain “Early Music” sound that many have in their heads, but it is a voice you remember, reminding us that the depth of passion inherent in these texts must not fall victim to the fussy preoccupations with “authenticity” that doom many a period performance to forgettable homogeneity.

 I am delighted to report that full-blooded vocalism and judicious dramatic choices animated the other principal characters as well, imbuing this age-old story with the kind of life a modern audience needs to keep these works alive.

In the role of Speranza Celeste, an added-on metaphorical figure absent from the original bible story, soprano Sarah Pillow was an ideal foil to Gould, offering a silvery crystalline timbre to the other soprano’s darker palette, the two illustrating a sonic divide between earth and heaven. Wafting through her scenes with the conviction of the righteous, she managed to be convincing rather than supercilious, her delicate phrasing and translucent color a cool and welcome breeze. In the Act I finale duet with Aman (Haman) her diaphanous sound balanced the swaggering bass-baritone of Ian Pomerantz.

Pomerantz clearly relished the outrageous evilness of his character, lurking and mugging through his role with great enthusiasm. A large instrument with a lot of potential, his burly approach resulted at times in less than clean runs and what seemed like some indecision about ornamentation (I recall being surprised by cadential trill of distinctly French provenance at one point). Judging from the audience reaction around me, his performance was a crowd pleaser, and even if his instrument spilled over the edge of stylistic precision for much of the evening, (and the evening does belong to Aman with his miles of arias), it fit the arrogance of this bullying character, one of the Old Testament’s biggest bad guys.

Like the finely crafted performance of José Lemos in regrettably too small a role, the magnificent Jonathan Woody in the role of Assuero the King doesn’t make an appearance until the second act. But what an appearance it is. With a minimum of fuss this gifted young bass-baritone spins out a warm and glorious velvety sound anchored by steel in its lowest range. His economy of action created a nobility of both character and timbre that contrasted Aman’s bluster. It is a sound that speaks of both technique and wisdom beyond this young singer’s years, and which provided a moral anchor as all is set right by a wise king who accepts counsel from others.

In the smaller roles Dominic Inferrera was poised and appealing as Testo (the narrator). Amanda Sidebottom and Martha Sullivan as two Hebrew women sang a lovely duet occasionally marred by intonation lapses. This carried over into the choruses that the two sopranos helmed. The alto Wendy Gilles, and lutenist Grant Herreid, doing double duty on the tenor line, joined bass-baritone Inferrera as the strong links in the vocal ensemble. Herreid played a stylish lute continuo, joining veteran theorbist Daniel Swenberg, gambist Loren Ludwig and harpsichordist Elliot Figg in the tight and responsive continuo group.

 I looked in vain for a stage director credit and found none, so it seems that the decision to move about the stage, or bima, as the case is here, was that of the singers, who presumably directed themselves. Books in hand, they created some very effective visuals that belied what must have been a brief rehearsal process. There was an unaffected freshness to the ease with which they moved, welcome in the face of so many “concept” productions, suffocated by overzealous directors with lots to do but nothing to say (my readers know this is a pet peeve of mine). Standard concert wear did the job of indicating character as well, with Queen Ester in a royal purple gown, Speranza Celeste in a dress of luminous and heavenly blue velvet, and the gentlemen in a color scheme of ties to indicate court (magenta), monarch (gold), or bad guy (silver).

(c) meche kroop