Introduction

The Phaeacians have set the sleeping Ulysses down on the shores of Ithaca, and his long wanderings are almost over. Monteverdi’s opera Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria depicts the last leg of Ulysses’s return from Troy: thanks to his divine protector Minerva, he reunites with his son Telemachus, then, disguised as an old beggar, sets out for the royal palace to destroy his wife’s power-hungry suitors. Penelope struggles to accept that the man to whom she has remained steadfastly faithful for 20 years is truly standing before her.
From her heartrending lament in Act I onward, Monteverdi gives Penelope the same care and attention he devotes to the opera’s hero himself. The path to the couple’s joyful reunion is lined with helpful and hostile gods, loyal and less loyal servants, hypocritical suitors and a social parasite as grotesque as he is gluttonous. With his genius for musical characterization, Monteverdi conjures up a vivid tapestry of characters and events, which the Milanese puppet company Colla will bring to life on stage with delightful inventiveness.