Elizabeth Anderson’s fascination with the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice was piqued by her high school music teacher, who told them about Vivaldi’s role as music master at the all-female orphanage, where he taught violin and composed for the orchestra and choir from 1703 to 1741. The private concerts, performed in the orphanage by the young women who were educated there, gained an international reputation for their musical brilliance.

Anderson is a contralto, harpsichordist and founding member of the Australian Chamber Choir where she is the Assistant Artistic Director and Manager, working closely with the choir’s Artistic Director (her husband) Douglas Lawrence.

Several years ago, when they were discussing programming Vivaldi’s Gloria, written in 1715 for the ensembles at the Ospedale della Pietà, Anderson thought it would be wonderful if they could pair it with a piece written by one of the young women he taught – but she wasn’t sure if anything had survived.

Her detective work led her to Venice’s Biblioteca Benedetto Marcello. Firing off an email, she was delighted when one of the librarians replied almost straightaway with information about the manuscripts held in the Correr Collection, where the musical heritage of the Ospedale della Pietà is preserved.

“We have long known of the excellence of the music education program at Venice’s Ospedale della Pietà during Vivaldi’s tenure, but now we have evidence that at least three of those orphan girls were composers,” says Anderson.

The most complete manuscript in the collection was a cantata Ecce nunc by Agatha (Agata) della Pietà – a joyous setting of Psalm 134. Anderson set about completing the work, which was given its world premiere by the ACC in 2022. After more performances in Australia in 2024, the choir performed it in Venice during its 2024 European tour.

Returning the composition to the city where it was written 300 year earlier was a thrilling experience for all involved. What’s more, it was the first-ever performance of the work outside the walls of the Ospedale. Open to the public, it was a landmark musical event.

The documentary Agatha’s Story, which premiered on SBS in August and is now available on SBS On Demand, brings Anderson’s discovery of Agatha’s cantata to life. Produced by award-winning filmmaker Catherine Hunter with funding support from the choir’s philanthropic arm, it was shot and edited by Bruce Inglis, who spent seven days travelling with the ACC in Europe.

Through interviews with various experts, it discusses the history of the Ospedale della Pietà and reveals as much as is known about Agatha. As well as tracing Anderson’s reconstruction of the cantata, it follows the ACC on its concert tour of Europe, culminating in the performance of Agatha’s Ecce nunc at Palazzo Pisani in Venice.

So who was Agatha? Shortly after her birth in 1712, she was abandoned – ‘posted’ through a small hole in the exterior wall (called a scaffetta) of the Ospedale della Pietà.

As revealed in the documentary, she only had one finger on her left hand, one toe on her left foot, and three toes on her right foot. As Limelight Digital Editor Jason Blake wrote in a 2024 story about Agatha’s cantata, “To be born with a physical difference in 18th-century Italy was often regarded as more than unfortunate; it was a curse. Among the superstitious, deformity was often regarded as a sign of God’s disfavour, a punishment for the misdeeds of the parents.

“For women in particular, it placed limits on their marriageability, with subsequent impacts on family finances at a time when dowries accompanied marriage contracts. Young girls born with physical differences were routinely abandoned at or soon after birth.”

Agatha would not have been able to play an instrument in the Ospedale’s world-famous orchestra, known as the Figlie di Coro. However, she is known to have become a glorious singer, while her cantata proves she “was very advanced in the music she was writing”, according to Vanessa Tonelli, Assistant Professor of Musicology from The University of Southern Mississippi, who is interviewed in the documentary.

Agatha went on to teach singing at the orphanage and became its administrator, dying at the age of 56.

In the documentary, Anderson is seen meeting Silvia Urbani, Assistant Librarian at the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory, who shows her the collection of manuscripts, including Agatha’s Ecce nunc.

It consists of three tutti movements, interspersed with three arias. The existing manuscript had four parts – violin, cello, alto and a bass part with text. Working from assumptions about the standard orchestras of the time in which instruments doubled certain voices, Anderson explains how she came up with the missing tenor voice part, duplicated by the viola.

Her experience playing the harpsichord was invaluable in this creative process, which she compares to a giant Sudoku puzzle.

Reviewing the 2022 premiere of Anderson’s reconstruction for The Age, Tony Way wrote, “Performing this music for the first time in nearly three hundred years, the Australian Chamber Choir has revealed a composer who combined technical rigour with expressive warmth. Cast in six short movements, Ecce nunc bears all the hallmarks of the Venetian Baroque style from which Anderson has sympathetically borrowed to reconstruct missing material for the solo movements.”

Reviewing it for Limelight two years later, Elizabeth Quinn wrote, “The joyous first movement was quite a spine-tingling moment for the audience in the small church, knowing we were among the first few hundred people in the world to hear this skillful reconstruction of the mid-18th-century work. The instrumental accompaniment added depth and the result was generally very pleasing.”

All in all, it’s a wonderful story of rediscovery – and with gorgeous shots of Venice, the documentary is well worth viewing.

“I feel tremendously excited to be taking Agatha’s cantata back to Venice,” says Anderson at the start of the documentary. “It is a piece of music that has lived in Venice for over 300 years. I feel that I’m doing it for Agatha. It should have happened during her lifetime. She should have been more famous. She should have been more recognised.” Jo Litson

Agatha’s Story can be viewed on SBS On Demand. The Australian Chamber Choir performs Agatha’s Cantata, Vivaldi’s Glora at Sterling Place Community Centre on 5 September and Scots’ Church, Melbourne on 12 September.