By Eugenio Murrali

On 14 November 1994, the notes of Georg Friedrich Handel’s Messiah rang out in the Church of St Catherine at the Nativity in Bethlehem. Written more than 250 years earlier, in 1741, this oratorio once again brought its message to a sacred place with a history spanning thousands of years, before an audience made up of Israelis and Palestinians, Christians, Jews and Muslims.

The concert had been the long-held, seemingly unattainable dream of a musician, Maestro Francisco de Araujo. Through commitment and determination, the conductor brought his vision to life after ten years of negotiations with the various institutions involved.

Recordings of this historic event had been lost, with the exception of a surviving VHS tape released in 2000. That videotape marked the beginning of the second chapter of this remarkable journey, involving director and writer Harvey Warren and Braintree Productions in the restoration of the footage that would eventually become the film Lost Treasure: Handel’s Messiah in Bethlehem.

“This is right when this message is needed,” Warren told the Vatican's media outlets in an interview. “Right now, we need to know that peace is possible, that people can stop hating one each other.”

A still from the film "Lost Treasure" © The film’s director and producers

One of Handel’s best-known compositions, Messiah was first performed in Dublin in 1742. Its English-language libretto, divided into three parts, recounts the life of Jesus. It was compiled by Charles Jennens, who had previously written the libretto for Handel’s Saul and is also thought to have prepared the text for Israel in Egypt.

In selecting biblical passages from both the Old and New Testaments, Jennens drew inspiration, among other sources, from the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England—one of the principal texts of the Anglican tradition.

The first part recounts the prophecies and the Nativity. The second focuses on the Passion and Resurrection, culminating in the celebrated Hallelujah chorus. The third explores the resurrection of the dead and the glorification of God.

Francisco de Araujo and Harvey Warren on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem — photo courtesy of Harvey Warren

Francisco de Araujo, who passed away last June, first met Harvey Warren in 1982 on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, where the musician was staging a dramatic portrayal of the Passion of Jesus. Forty years later, de Araujo worked side by side with Warren, devoting his remaining energy to helping the director bring Lost Treasure to life.

The American conductor of Portuguese descent was also a music educator who organised major events, guided by his belief in music’s power to bring people together.

In the Holy Land, he conceived the idea of performing Handel’s Messiah in the Church of St Catherine—an unprecedented event for that sacred setting. As both Warren and de Araujo recount, the concert proposal was initially met with considerable scepticism by the various institutions involved. Yet, after many years, the conductor's persistence finally paid off.

In 1994, he was able to conduct a choir, an orchestra and soloists in Bethlehem, Jesus' birthplace. Religious and civil authorities attended the event, despite their often opposing viewpoints.

On 14 November of that year, the Nativity complex was under military protection amid fears of possible attacks. Nevertheless, Israeli and Palestinian leaders, along with representatives of the three great monotheistic religions, gathered together. They listened to the oratorio and applauded its message of faith and peace.

One of the scenes of the Holy Land from the film © The film’s director and producers

“People that come to this film Lost Treasure will come to it,” Warren says, “because they're feeling in this moment in the world that it is time for something unifying to be said. It's time for people to talk about peace. It's time for people to talk about hope. It's time for people to put the guns down and start sitting together in peace.”

Warren sees this message as a responsibility to restore the concert footage and share the values it embodies.

Two recent developments have made the project possible. On the one hand, there has been renewed interest in productions generally described as faith-based media—channels and platforms that distribute content connected with the Christian tradition, such as the successful series The Chosen. On the other, technological progress has accelerated at an extraordinary pace.

“The technology that was needed to make the film viewable in a motion picture theater only existed 2024, a couple years ago,” Warren explained. “So we were able to take what was a very difficult VHS and turn it into a full-blown feature film.”

These new tools enabled the work, through a restoration faithful to the original, to pass copyright office checks. Film-restoration specialists—assisted by artificial intelligence—analysed and enhanced various aspects of the recording, starting with the deteriorated VHS tape. They examined numerous characteristics of the footage, including colour, edges, sharpness and image composition.

Warren envisioned Lost Treasure as a feature film running approximately two hours, interweaving the three parts of Handel’s oratorio with interviews that convey the commitment and effort required to bring the concert to fruition.

The music is also accompanied by sixty scenes filmed across the Holy Land in 4K resolution, along with a series of sacred artworks illustrating the Scriptures. The original soundtrack has been transformed into a complete Dolby Atmos audio track.

The documentary is being presented, among other events, at the Love & Hope International Film Festival in Barcelona, and a broadcast on FaithChannel is scheduled for the coming Christmas season.

Thank you for reading our article. You can keep up-to-date by subscribing to our daily newsletter. Just click here.