are “Herod’s Court” and “The Slaughter of the Innocents,” with Rachel’s lament for her children familiar to us from Jeremiah 31:15. The Waverly Consort program vividly depicts Herod and his son as vainglorious empire-builders, as recognizable in their transparently self-aggrandizing tactics as the tycoons and tyrants of today. Profoundly shaken by the Magi’s news of a rival on the horizon, they plot the extermination of all possible threats: “We hear of the birth of a greater king, whose power is over us. Truly we fear that we be taken from our throne. Against that petty king, give word that
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