Intro

Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria

Claudio Monteverdi (1567 - 1643)

From 13/05/2011 in Ghent - from 26/05/2011 in Antwerp

• Musical direction: Federico Maria Sardelli
• Director: Michael Hampe
• Ulisse / L'Humana Fragilità: Furio Zanasi
• Penelope: Marianna Pizzolato
• Telemaco: Magnus Staveland
• Minerva: Lucia Cirillo

Baroque in a legendary production

After ten years of adventuring and wandering from East to West, the hero Ulisse finally returns home to Ithaca. His journey has both marked and matured him. Now he finds his faithful wife Penelope beset by insistent suitors out for money, power and sex. But she stubbornly resists their advances. She also distrusts Ulisse, who appears in disguise. He must convince her of his true identity, of his undiminished love and put his house in order once more.

For his first Venetian opera, Monteverdi chose an excerpt from Homer’s Odyssey. This ancient story inspired him to create a story about coming home, fidelity, seduction, doubt and catharsis – all familiar themes for the existential modern man. Monteverdi creates the characters we are so familiar with in a musically inventive way. He masterfully combines recitatives with arias and allows instrumental numbers to influence the dramatic sung parts. This was a revolutionary procedure at the time and it made Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria an opera in which errant man with his eternal doubts appears in the foreground and the gods play a minor role.

Duration: 19.30h - ca. 22.35h. Afternoon performances: 15.00h - ca. 18.35h.
Language: Italian. Subtitles: Dutch.

Team

This stirring Monteverdi opera will be presented at the Flanders Opera in a production by the legendary director Michael Hampe. He staged this production for the Salzburger Festspiele together with his permanent setdesigner Mauro Pagano. The duo of Hampe and Pagano made history when they turned baroque opera into living musical theatre. Their opera productions are always a feast for the eyes and tell us as much about the cultural context in which the works were created as the discourse of the opera itself. After his successful debut in Giasone, the baroque specialist Frederico Maria Sardelli will once again conduct the Flanders Opera Orchestra, which willbe supplemented for the occasion with baroque specialists, original instruments and the excellent ensemble of singers, which includes six tenors, in this wonderful Monteverdi production.

• Musical direction
  Federico Maria Sardelli
• Director
  Michael Hampe
• Set design
  Hank Irwin Kittel
• Mauro Pagano
• Costumes
  Hank Irwin Kittel
• Mauro Pagano
• Lightning
  Hans Toelstede
•  
• Ulisse / L'Humana Fragilità
  Furio Zanasi
• Penelope
  Marianna Pizzolato
• Telemaco
  Magnus Staveland
• Minerva
  Lucia Cirillo
• Ericlea
  Elena Zilio
• Il Tempo / Antinoo
  Igor Bakan
• La Fortuna / Melanto
  Julianne Gearhart
• Giove / Pisandro
  Joseph Cornwell
• Nettuno
  Luigi De Donato
• Anfinomo
  Yijie Shi
• Eurimaco
  Gijs Van der Linden
• Eumete
  Eduardo Santamaría
• Iro
  Robert Wörle
• Amore
  Dorine Mortelmans