From the Actor
From the beginning I was warned that I was embarking on an impossible mission. My dream - to present a special, television performance of HANDEL'S MESSIAH in the town of Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christ, now a war ravaged Palestinian town. I must convince the intransigent Franciscan Fathers, Custodians of the ancient Church of the Nativity, to allow a TV Crew with technical equipment and TV cameras to invade the quiet sanctity of one of the holiest places on earth, something they had never allowed in seventeen hundred years. I must compel the Israeli Military Governor to allow the event to take place under threat of terrorist activity. "You are courting disaster of catastrophic proportions," I was told.
Whenever impossible odds confronted me and threatened to obliterate my vision, I would quietly secret myself down those lonely steps beneath the Church of the Nativity into the abyss of the Grotto, the very cave where Jesus was born. I touched the blackened walls of that ancient cave and tenderly soothed the feeding stall, chiseled out of the solid bedrock, where Mary, two millennia ago laid her newborn Son. Here I found the solace and encouragement to move forward against the constant, impossible extremities that faced me on a daily basis.
My dream was to bring to this holiest of sites the inspired music of Handel, which embodies the Life, Passion and Resurrection of Christ. I spent twenty years of my life working to fulfill my dream! Without heaven's blessing upon this project it would have never taken place.
My offering was to bring hope through music and performance. Even in our darkest moments, we can enter that holy Grotto and with the angels sing, "The kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever. King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, Hallelujah!"
Come with me even unto Bethlehem. Let your faith be rekindled in a way you may never have thought possible.
Francisco
Product Description
George Frederick Handel, suffering the ravages of a stroke, emotionally spent and nearly bankrupt, had attained in his youth a considerable reputation as a composer. Now he faced the looming terror of debtors' prison. In the depths of this "dark night of the soul", came the opportunity to write the MESSIAH. Handel fell into a frenzy for 24 days and nights, caught up in whirlwind of music that brought him to heaven's door. His servant found him bent over with tears streaming down his face, "Me thinks I have seen the Great God himself. Hallelujah, Hallelujah."
MESSIAH has the power to bring kings and paupers, Christians, Jews and Moslems to their feet in a moment of musical transformation. Which is exactly what happened in Bethlehem, in the Church of the Nativity, built in 326 AD on the very site where Christ was born. Surrounded by tanks, brought to protect the eclectic gathering of dignitaries from all sides of the peace process from those who would terrorize the peacemakers, the ancient Church was filled with Handel's passionate and stirring music.
And what sweet music it was. An orchestra composed mostly of Russian Jewish immigrants, who literally kissed the ground of Israel when they arrived. A technically superior choir of gifted singers, La Camerata Nuove from Washington, D.C. A conductor and musical director, Francisco de Araujo, driven by his own internal fire, who spent twenty years of his life convincing the Church Fathers to bring his dream to fulfillment.
Francisco's passion and the choir and soloists' acute awareness of the heart-expanding meaning of the moment, the place and the music is not lost in the bringing of this event to video. It brings Handel's beloved masterpiece together with the beauty of the holy sites of the homeland of Jesus, the Messiah of the title. I cannot imagine that Handel could be more pleased.
Blessings for Peace,
Joy Warren
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