Monteverdi: II Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria.(Video Recording Review)

[] Kasarova, Hartelius, Rey, Jankova, Kallisch; Henschel, Kaufmann, Schasching, Mayr, Zysset, Mohr, Oro, Daniluk, Scorsin, Scharinger, Bidzinski; Orchestra La Scintilla of the Opernhaus Zurich, Harnoncourt. ArtHaus Musik DVD 100 353 (Naxos, dist.), 155 mins.

In i977, Nikolaus Harnoncourt created quite a stir with his highly successful adaptation of Claudio Monteverdi's Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria. To celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of this triumph, Zurich Opera invited Harnoncourt to return and lead a new production of the opera, captured on DVD.

Written in 1640-41, thirty-three years after L'Orfeo and one year before L'Incoronazione di Poppea, Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria is a very late work. In it, the musical drama is driven by recitative-like monody, rather than by tuneful arias and choruses. Because the manuscript score is notated mostly in a kind of musical shorthand, with just the melody and an accompanying bass line, modern adaptations require a great deal of creative input and scholarly speculation. Harnoncourt's version is colorful and imaginative, among his finest efforts. His interpretation is warmly committed, his tempos more relaxed and assured than those in many of his early recordings.

The scenario encompasses the closing sections of Homer's Odyssey, in which Ulysses finally returns home, only to find his wife, Penelope, besieged by unwanted suitors, all of them lusting for Ulysses's throne. Penelope is one of the first significant heroines in opera. ...