Dear friends,I can’t believe this is happening- but it is!On June 10, 2025, a unique musical event will take place at the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam: the modern Dutch premiere of the Hebrew oratorio Esther (1774) by Cristiano Giuseppe Lidarti, one of the leading liturgical composers of his time. This work, set to a Hebrew text by Rabbi Jacob Raphael Saraval, was originally written for Amsterdam’s Portuguese Synagogue but was forgotten for centuries. Now, in celebration of the synagogue’s 350th anniversary, this long-lost musical treasure will be performed again for the first time. The story behind Esther is as compelling as the work itself. Saraval based his Hebrew libretto on Handel’s English oratorio Esther, which itself drew from the French tragedy by Jean Racine. The commission likely came from David Franco Mendes—poet, historian, and secretary of Amsterdam’sPortuguese Jewish community. Two manuscript copies of the Hebrew libretto are preserved today in the Ets Haim Library in Amsterdam.Lidarti’s score, long thought lost, was rediscovered in 1998 by musicologist Prof. Israel Adler in the library of Cambridge University. It remains the longest and most richly orchestrated work of Hebrew art music from the 17th and 18th centuries known today. The composition consists of three acts, with roles for soloists, choir, and a full classical orchestra. While there is no confirmed evidence of an 18th-century performance, the musical sophistication of Amsterdam’s Portuguese Jewish community and Lidarti’s reputation among them make such a premiere at the time highly plausible. The June 10 performance is more even a premiere —it is a cultural homecoming. It brings to life a long-lost chapter of Amsterdam’s musical history, one in which Jewish musicians, composers, and patrons played a key role. The Portuguese-Jewish community of Amsterdam brought with them a deep love for music, integrating it into both religious and secular life. This tradition led to the flourishing of cantatas, concerts, vocal competitions, and even their own opera house in the 18th century.Please come! I’ll be singing the role of Haman!